MANSFIELD, Conn. – So much for the prognosticators.
 
After finishing with a share of second place in the regular season and coming off its first Little East Conference playoff championship in 2021, the Eastern Connecticut State University field hockey team was picked to finish second in the conference in this year's coaches' pre-season poll.
 
After sharing last place a year ago with a 1-11 regular-season conference record, Framingham State University was the coaches' favorite to repeat in the cellar of the conference this year.
 
Tuesday night, to the surprise of some, Framingham (9-7, 5-6 LEC) qualified for the Little East playoffs as the eighth and final seed, and in the process, eliminated Eastern (6-10, 3-8 LEC) from contention by scoring two goals in the first half in a 2-0 victory that kept the Warriors out of the post-season tournament for only the second time in the last eight years. After going 7-2 at home last year, Eastern had a reversal of fortunes this year, finishing 2-7 at Rick McCarthy Field, where four of those losses came by one goal and two losses came against out-of-conference opponents.
 
Eastern closes out the season with road games this week, visiting Mount Holyoke College Thursday in a non-conference makeup game and traveling to Salem State University in a conference match that will signal the end of the 2022 season.
 
An inability to convert any of their 13 penalty corners (ten in the first half) into goals cost the Warriors against Framingham, which had entered the game having lost three of its previous four, but averaging over three goals per match. Eastern, which had given up an average of only one-and-a-half goals this year, held the Rams under their average but were unable to extend a winning streak of nine straight games against Framingham (eight of them by shutout).
 
Junior forward Brandi Core scored her ninth goal of the year on the team-leading 12^th goal of the year from junior forward Corlene Guenard to provide the Rams with the only goal they would need with three minutes left in the first quarter, and freshman forward Natalia Roehr made it 2-0 11 minutes later on a feed from freshman Kennedy St. Pierre as the Warriors were shut out for only the third time this year.

Eastern had a handful of scoring opportunities that either went wide of the cage or were stopped by junior goalie Kaitlin Loughlin. Trailing 2-0 at halftime, Eastern did not allow a shot in the third quarter and gave up only two in the second half but could not convert any of its four second-half shots.
 
Midway through the third quarter first-year forward and team scoring leader Emma Sanson (Thomaston)  stickhandled into the circle off a re-start by junior midfielder Leah Kowalasky (Middlebury) but could not unload a shot before the ball was taken away by the Framingham defense.
 
Sophomore forward Liz LaMarco (West Hartford), second only to Sanson in scoring this year, was Eastern's most dangerous player in the second half when she attempted all four of Eastern's shots.
 
In the third quarter, LaMarco had two chances when she took a feed from  junior forward Kayee Drobish (Wallingford) on the left side but her initial shot and rebound were both stopped by Loughlin. LaMarco had three golden opportunities in a span of two minutes in the fourth quarter but came up empty. On the first one, Drobish made a long run on the right side and centered the ball into the circle, where LaMarco hit it wide. A minute later, LaMarco blistered a low shot through traffic that bounced off the pads of a screened Loughlin, and soon after, LaMarco found herself alone on a counter but Loughlin again came up big.