WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – Sophomore Ryan Toomey (Willington) set up two goals on corner kicks and first-year goalkeeper Zack Doncet (Portland) made two saves to record his first career win in his first career start as the Eastern Connecticut State University men's soccer team clinched third place and a first-round home game in the upcoming Little East Conference playoff with a 3-1 win over Plymouth State University Saturday afternoon at Thomas Nevers Field.
 
Regardless of the outcome of its final LEC regular-season match next Saturday at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Eastern (9-5-2, 5-2-0 LEC) is unofficially guaranteed the third seed and will host the No. 6 seed Tuesday, Nov. 1 at Thomas Nevers Field. Eastern won last year's LEC regular season and went on to its sixth LEC playoff championship under current head coach Greg DeVito.
 
Saturday's match was the final regular-season conference one for Plymouth (5-7-3, 1-5-2 LEC), which unofficially will miss the six-team LEC playoffs. The Panthers close with two non-conference contests.
 
Toomey set up Eastern's first two goals with corner kicks, with senior defender Jared Caroline (South Windsor) scoring his second goal of the year to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead in the tenth minute, and sophomores Sean Cafferty (Clinton) and Walter Scudder (Unionville) connected ten minutes apart to boost Eastern's lead to 3-0 ten minutes into the second half.
 
Cafferty finished off Scudder's shot at the goal line in coming off the bench for his second goal of the year in the final minute of the first half, and Scudder's third goal of the year came on a header off a long serve from senior Larson Richards (Mansfield) with just under ten minutes gone in the second half.
 
Sophomore John Christie's blast from inside the box after Doncet punched out a serve provided the Panthers with their only goal.
 
Plymouth, winless (0-5-1) in six road games this year, held the Warriors off the board over the final 23 minutes despite playing a man down following a red-card ejection while trailing, 3-1.
 
Doncet entered the match with only 28 minutes of experience in one prior off-the-bench appearance. Doncet's first save less than three minutes into play came when PSU leading scorer Faisal Abdallah collected a thru-ball inside the box but Doncet charged out to break up the play. Seven minutes after Caroline's opening goal, junior defender Jaren Haddock (South Windsor) cleared a potential Plymouth scoring bid before the ball had a chance to reach Doncet.
 
Doncet was aided by Eastern's 22-4 advantage in shots and its 16-0 advantage in corner kicks.
 
Making his 13^th start of the year, junior Nicolas Cornejo made seven saves in falling to 4-6-3 on the season. Cornejo kept his team's deficit at two goals six minutes into the second half when he dove to his right to get an arm on Scudder's low shot through traffic. Four minutes later, however, Scudder beat the goalie with his head ball off of Richards' serve.
 
Eastern visits Massachusetts College Tuesday in a non-conference match and closes out the regular season with a conference game at UMass Dartmouth Saturday at 4 p.m.