Box Score
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – The Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team has lost three of its last four Little East Conference matches since a 3-0 start, but in the process, proved that it belongs on the same court as the four teams rated above it in the LEC pre-season coaches' poll.
 
Saturday, Eastern (15-7, 4-3 LEC) slipped from a tie for third place in the conference standings into a tie for fourth after dropping a highly-contested five-set decision to the University of Massachusetts Boston  at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium. Scores were 24-26, 25-19, 25-15, 13-25, 9-15.
 
Eastern and UMass Boston (13-11, 5-2 LEC) entered action sharing third place behind leaders University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Plymouth State University  - teams which reached last year's LEC championship match. While the Warriors slip into a two-way tie for fourth place (the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds host first-round LEC tournament matches in ten days), Eastern holds the tie-breaker over WestConn after sweeping the Wolves (ranked third in the LEC pre-season poll) three weeks ago for its third LEC win in as many games.
 
Since that home win over WestConn, Eastern has lost three of its four LEC matches – all three losses coming against teams holding higher pre-season rankings than Eastern's No. 5 slot. Each of those three losses were tightly contested affairs, however. Eastern took one set against fourth-ranked Plymouth and scored 17, 18 and 21 points in the losses; and lost its three sets to top-ranked UMass Dartmouth by an average of seven points. UMass Boston was ranked second in the LEC pre-season poll.
 
Against UMass Boston Saturday, the Warriors were within a point of winning the first set before allowing the final four points, then swept to the wins in the second and third sets to move to the brink of winning the match,  before faltering in the final two. In the decisive fifth set, juniors Paige Coulson and junior Mya Perron combined for five kills to stake the Beacons to a 9-3 lead and the Warriors never got closer than five the rest of the way as UMB prevailed in the third match that went the five-set distance of the last seven contests between the clubs.Although Perron  attacked at only .079 in the match, the 5-foot-8 inch outside took 63 swings and put down 18 balls, while 5-foot-7 inch sophomore Mary Denny attacked at .357 with 14 kills.
 
For Eastern, juniors Brooke Praskievicz (Moodus) and Sierra York (Ashford) combined for half of Eastern's kills on the afternoon, but three key players finished with negative attack numbers. Praskievicz had 12 kills with a .323 percentage and York added ten kills.
 
Senior Liz Squier (Trevor, WI) led Eastern with 19 assists, with sophomore Ariah Davis (Raleigh, NC) adding 11;  Praskievicz and first-year junior transfer Sarah Eldredge (South Windsor) each had three service aces; sophomore Emerson Conigliaro (Raleigh, NC) led the Warriors with 17 digs, Praskievicz adding 14, sophomore Emma Robinson (Westlake Village, CA) 12 and Squier ten.
 
After closing out its home regular season Wednesday in a non-conference match against Salem State University at 6 p.m. on Senior Night, Eastern winds up the regular season at the University of Southern Maine (8-21, 1-6 LEC) Saturday at noon. Unofficially, a victory over USM would provide Eastern with an LEC tournament first-round home match Nov. 11.