WILLIMANTIC, Conn. --  The Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team couldn't close out the first set, then failed to hold an early lead in the second and was swept by the University of Massachusetts Boston in the final Little East Conference regular-season match for both teams Saturday at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium. Scores were 27-25, 25-20, 25-18.
 
Playing for a win which would have left Eastern (11-14, 3-5 LEC) in a three-way tie for fourth place with UMass Boston (16-9, 4-4 LEC) and Keene State College and a possible first-round home match, Eastern must now settle for the sixth and final seed in the LEC playoffs and a first round road match.  Eastern will visit third-seeded Western Connecticut (18-7, 6-2 LEC) -- which swept visiting Rhode Island College Saturday – for the third straight year in the opening round Tuesday at 7 p.m. The lower-seeded Warriors have defeated WestConn in five sets in each of the last two years in the first round.
 
Fourth-seeded UMass Boston will host fifth-seeded Keene State in Tuesday's first round at 6 p.m.

Also Saturday, UMass Dartmouth won its first LEC regular-season title and gained the No. 1 playoff see when the Corsairs won the battle of LEC unbeatens in five sets after losing the first two at Plymouth State University.
 
In the first set Saturday, Eastern broke the 11^th tie on a service ace by first-year player Brooke Praskievicz (Moodus) to move to within set point, 24-23,  but senior Livia Trindade – last week's LEC Offensive Player-of-the-Week -- denied Eastern the win with a kill off a set from sophomore Ruby Ackerman. The teams traded attack errors and Trindade broke the 25-all tie with another kill from Ackerman, and with Trindade serving, Eastern committed a set-ending attack error.
 
In the second set, a ball-handling error gave Eastern a quick 1-0 lead and behind the serving of Praskievicz, Eastern raced to a 5-0 lead on kills from Praskievicz and senior Paige Savitsky (Centereach, NY) and two UMass attack errors.
 
With Trindade serving, four straight points cut Eastern's early 7-2 lead to one and the Beacons took the lead for good, 15-14, on an Eastern service error. An Eastern attack error give the visitors a four-point lead (21-17) that stood up the rest of the way.
 
There were ten ties and six lead chances in the third set before UMass took the lead for good, 15-14 on the second of two straight kills by Trindade. Leading by three, the Beacons outscored the Warriors 5-1 the rest of the way on three Eastern errors and kills from junior Dylan Wertzberger and the clincher on sophomore Mikayla Cleary's only kill of the set.
 
Trindade had five kills with one error in the first set and five kills without an error in the third set.
 
Trindade and Wertzberger each had ten kills and  combined on a .378 attack percentage. Ackerman and sophomore Amelia Devlin combined on 31 assists, senior libero Ally Dean had 16 digs and freshman Katie Tuohy and graduate student Taryn Broughal combined on 11 blocks.
 
Thanks in large part to UMass' ten blocks (one solo, 18 assists), Eastern attacked at only .048.
 
Praskievicz led Eastern with 14 kills and had three service aces but was the only player with more than six kills. Sophomores Samantha Blandford (Windham, NH) and Liz Squier (Trevor, WI) combined for 32 assists and Praskievicz and sophomore Sadie Blackwell (Southbury) combined for 25 digs.
 
After opening the year with a 10-7 record, Eastern lost seven of its last eight matches, with its last six setbacks coming in straight sets. UMass heads into LEC play with three straight wins after splitting four of its previous eight.