DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Junior Briley Harnois (Attleboro, MA) came off the bench to score her first goal in three weeks to help provide the Eastern Connecticut State University women's soccer team with a 1-1 tie with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in a match played in a downpour Saturday at Cressy Field.

Harnois led Eastern (4-6-3, 1-3-3 LEC) in scoring last year but has been limited to nine games this year due to injury. Saturday, in a season-high 55 minutes, she took six of the team's 16 shots and broke through against UMass Dartmouth (2-7-6, 0-3-4 LEC) freshman keeper Grace Conti to tie the match with five minutes left in the first half.

The Warriors outshot the Corsairs, 12-6, in the second half but had to settle for a tie for the second straight year after winning 11 straight games in the series dating back 12 years. Eastern's last loss in the series came in overtime 28 years ago on the road.

By grabbing a point with the tie, Eastern (six points) remains two points ahead of the Corsairs in its quest for one of the six LEC post-season playoff berth. UMass remains in a three-way tie for seventh place with Plymouth State and VTSU Castleton.

A victory in its LEC regular-season final Saturday against visiting University of Massachusetts Boston, unofficially, gives Eastern sixth place and a first-round road game on Oct. 31. UMass Boston is in fourth place (3-1-3 LEC) with 12 points. On Friday, UMB was upset at home by VTSU Castleton, which won its first conference game against five losses and a tie.

Also coming off the bench, first-year midfielder Lauren Weaver (Columbia) was credited with her second career assist on Harnois' second goal of the year. The tying goal came 17 minutes after junior Jillian Swass had given the Corsairs a 1-0 lead with her first goal of the season. Harnois' goal ended the team's streak of 319 scoreless minutes dating back to junior Olivia Mullings' (Newington) game-winning goal in the final ten minutes of a 1-0 LEC win at VTSU Castleton three weeks ago.

Minutes after Swass's goal, UMD had a chance to extend its lead, but junior Kaitlyn Nguyen was turned away twice by Eastern senior goalie Emily Wallace (Smithtown, NY), who made seven saves to record her third tie of the season against two wins and three losses. It was only the fifth goal allowed this year by Wallace, who has a 0.59 goals-against average and .921 save percentage – among the top numbers in the conference. In LEC games, Wallace leads the conference with 44 saves.