DARTMOUTH, Mass. --  Sophomore Logan Brennan (Farmington) scored his team-leading eighth goal of the year and sophomore Christian Hohulin (Plymouth, MA) and first-year player Matthew Kessler (West Islip, NY) scored the first of their careers as the Eastern Connecticut State University men's soccer team tuned up for its first-round Little East Conference playoff match Saturday with a 4-0 conference win over the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth at Cressy Field.
 
Eastern (11-5-2, 6-2-0 LEC) closes the regular season with three straight victories and six in its final seven regular-season matches. It was the team's seventh road win against only one loss and two ties.
 
The Warriors are the third seed in the LEC playoffs and host sixth-seeded Keene State College Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Thomas Nevers Field. A first-round win would advance the defending LEC playoff champions to the semifinals, where they would visit second-seeded University of Massachusetts Boston.
 
Under current 16^th-year head coach Greg DeVito, Eastern will be facing Keene State in the playoffs for the fifth time – all at home. The Warriors prevailed on penalty kicks after a scoreless overtime draw in DeVito's first season on the way to the title in 2007. The ensuing three matches have ended in 1-0 scores, Keene winning twice.
 
Behind first-year keeper Zack Doncet (Portland) and junior keeper Dylan Pallanck (Willington) and Eastern posted its sixth shutout of the year and third in the last four years against UMass (2-11-4, 1-6-1), which will not qualify for the playoffs. Pallanck made five saves in the second half to preserve Doncet's second win in two decisions.
 
Kessler gave Eastern a 1-0 lead inside the final minute of the first half when he converted sophomore Grady Kelly's (Granby) corner kick (Kelly's first point of the year) and the Warriors put the game away by scoring three times in 24 minutes in the second half. Logan made it 2-0 in the 59^th minute, first-year player Niall O'Brien's (Guilford) sixth goal of the year on a penalty kick pushed the advantage to 3-0, and Hohulin's marker closed out the scoring with eight minutes left.
 
Keene enters the tournament winless (0-4-1) in its final five regular-season contests. In Eastern's 3-2 regular-season win at Keene State (5-11-2, 3-5-0 LEC), sophomore keeper Nathan Yeich (Willington) made six saves, and O'Brien's second goal of the year early in the second half gave the Warriors the lead for good.