Box Score
BOSTON – Dylan Wertzberger and Lauren Westlund combined for 22 kills to power the University of Massachusetts Boston to a four-set Little East Conference women's volleyball victory over Eastern Connecticut State University in the regular-season finale for both teams Saturday afternoon at the Clark Athletic Center, sending the Warriors to their fourth straight LEC loss and putting them on the road in the LEC playoffs for the fourth straight year. UMB won by scores of 25-21, 22-25, 25-15, 25-22.
 
By winning, UMass Boston (18-8, 6-2 LEC) nails down the No. 3 playoff seed and will host No. 6 Keene State College (14-15, 3-5 LEC) in one first-round LEC playoff match Tuesday at 6 p.m.. Fifth-seeded Eastern (13-11, 4-4 LEC) will visit fourth-seeded Western Connecticut State University (15-13, 4-4 LEC) in Tuesday's other first-round match at 7 p.m.
 
In a battle of LEC unbeatens, Plymouth State University wrapped up a perfect 8-0 conference ledger and the outright regular-season championship with a five-set victory at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, winning 15-7 in the deciding set. Both teams will gain first-round byes. UMD had won last year's regular-season title at 8-0 (and went on to a five-set win over Plymouth in the LEC playoff finals), winning the battle of unbeatens in five sets at Plymouth on the final day of the regular season.
 
Eastern and WestConn share fourth place in the final LEC standings but the Wolves held the tie-breaker by downing Eastern in four sets in the regular-season match Oct. 23 at Felman Arena.
 
WestConn ended the regular season with its third straight loss when it was swept by Rhode Island College (which failed to qualify for the playoffs) by a total of seven points Saturday morning at Providence. Eastern, which would have supplanted UMass Boston as the No. 3 seed with a victory Saturday (the teams would having shared third place but Eastern would have held the tie-breaker based upon the victory), had prevailed in five sets over RIC a month ago at Providence.
 
It marks the fourth time in as many years that Eastern will travel to face Western Connecticut State University in the first round of the Little East Conference playoffs, the lower-seeded Warriors winning in five sets in 2021 and 2022 and being eliminated in three sets as the No. 6 seed against the third-seeded Wolves last year. Eastern is seeded fifth this year, WestConn fourth.  
 
The victory is the eighth straight for surging UMass Boston, which had played .500 volleyball (7-7) through a five-week stretch at mid-season. Eastern was coming off sweeps in its previous two (non-conference) matches against Bay Path University at home last Saturday and at Salem State University this past Tuesday. Since peaking with an 11-6 record after a home LEC sweep of VTSU Castleton a month ago, Eastern is 2-6 in its last eight matches heading into post-season play.
 
After dropping the opening set Saturday, Eastern evened the match with its three-point victory in the second set before the Beacons pulled away for the a ten-point win in the all-important third-set victory. A UMass attack error allowed Eastern to knot the third set at 9-9 before the hosts ran off five straight points on two kills, a service ace and  Eastern attack and ball-handling errors.
 
In the second set, Eastern rallied from four points down to take an 18-17 lead and later broke a 21-all tie to take a two-point lead on kills from senior Taylor Smith (Bowie, MD) off a UMB serve and first-year player Emma Robinson (Westlake Village, CA) off a serve by sophomore Brooke Praskievicz (Moodus). A UMB bad set moved the Warriors to within one of set point, and Robinson's kill off another UMass serve and a set by junior Liz Squier (Trevor, WI) nailed down the win.
 
Eastern never led in the final set but kept it close throughout, pulling  even several times, the last time at 18-all on a kill by sophomore Haley Jo Bridges (Montebello, NY). A kill by Westlund  and block assists by Wertzberger and Addie Blomgren pushed UMB back into a 20-18 lead and the Warriors were never able to score as many as two consecutive points the rest of the way.
 
Robinson led Eastern with 11 kills, senior Bella Johnson (Marlborough) adding seven and Smith six (with a .455 attack percentage). Senior Sadie Blackwell (Southbury) and Robinson shared the team lead with 19 digs each, Praskievicz adding 16 and Squier ten digs to go along with 33 assists and three service aces.
 
After losing 11 of 12 against UMass Boston in one ten-year stretch, Eastern had defeated the Beacons in four of the previous six encounters heading into Saturday's match, including sweeps on UMB's home court the last two times the clubs had met in the regular season. In the 2021 LEC semifinals at UMB, Eastern was within a set of advancing to the finals but dropped 30-28, 15-12 decisions after winning two of the first three sets.
 
WestConn enters the playoffs with a 7-4 home record while Eastern is 5-7 on its opponents' home court this year. The Warriors are 1-4 against LEC teams on the road, WestConn 3-1 at home.
 
In the regular-season meeting, WestConn handed the Warriors the first of four straight LEC losses after Eastern had won its first four conference contests this year. In that match, sophomores Maggie Barr (Easthampton, MA) and Bridges  each had seven kills and had a combined attack percentage of .313, but the rest of the squad attached at -.034. First-year players Emerson Conigliaro (Wake Forest, NC) and Robinson combined for 30 digs.