WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – Eastern Connecticut looks to maintain late-season momentum when it opens play in its third straight NCAA Division III tournament Thursday at 6 p.m. against heavily-favored Williams College in the opening round of the New England Regional Tournament at Rockwell Cage on the MIT campus.

Seeded seventh in the eight-team field, Eastern (11-26) meets No. 2 Williams College (27-7) in the third of four matches on the first day of play. Two semifinal-round matches are scheduled for Friday beginning at 4:30 p.m. and the championship tilt is set for Saturday at 7 p.m. The regional winner moves on to the Round of 32.

In other matches Thursday, No. 4 Wellesley College (27-6) opens the tournament at 1 p.m. against No. 5 Endicott College (26-10); No. 3 Amherst College (27-4) meets No. 6 Rivier College (25-11) at 3:30.; and No. 1 MIT (34-2) hosts No. 8 Maine Maritime Academy (19-5) in the final match at 8:30. Six of the eight teams in the regional qualified automatically, with Amherst and MIT being awarded at-large berths in the 61-team field. Amherst lost the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) playoff final to Williams, and MIT lost for only the second time all year when it had a 30-match winning streak severed by Wellesley in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference championship match.

Last week, Eastern salvaged what has been a disastrous season by winning the Little East Conference championship with three wins in five days – culminating in a three-game sweep of second-seeded Western Connecticut State University Saturday. By winning the title and gaining the automatic bid given the champion, Eastern extended its New England Division III record with its 16th NCAA tournament berth.

Until the final week of the season, the Warriors had won as many as two matches in a row only once. With a 6-13 record in late September, Eastern lost its first ten matches in the month of October before winning five of its last eight. The No. 5 seed in the eight-team LEC playoffs, Eastern defeated three higher seeds on the road, surviving in five games in the two matches leading up to the championship win over Western Connecticut. The team brings a season-high four-match winning streak into tomorrow’s opener.

“We had a lot of struggles this year and a lot of ups and downs,” observed fifth-year head coach Jolie Ward after the team won its third straight LEC title (seventh overall) Saturday. “But the players pulled together. With such a young team, we had a lot of adversity early in the season. I knew that they had the potential to do amazing things as a team, but it had to come from them, they needed to see it,” added the coach, who was credited with her 100th win at Eastern when the club broke its ten-game losing streak Oct. 19 against Montclair State. “We needed to go through the struggles first, and make adjustments and make changes. And the players ultimately proved it to themselves.”

Eastern has been eliminated with first-round NCAA loss each of the last two years. It was swept by Cortland State in 2005 and dropped a five-game decision to Endicott last year. The Warriors have the least wins, most losses and worst winning percentage in this year’s NCAA field. During the regular season, they were 0-3 against teams in the New England Regional, and 0-6 against teams from the NESCAC.

Eastern and Williams are dominated by freshmen and sophomores and each team features only one senior in setters Priscilla Dougherty (Island Park, N.Y.) of Eastern and reserve player Liz Hirschorn of Williams.

The MVP of the Little East tournament, Dougherty is the only player in Eastern history with as many as 1,000 career assists and 1,000 digs. She ranks second all-time with 2,787 career assists.

Dougherty, the team captain, leads this year’s team in assists and serve percentage and is second in service aces and third in digs. Sophomore libero Lauren Odell (Dover Plains, N.Y.) is first on the team in digs, service aces and pass attempts, and second-team all-conference junior Sandra Jaques (Milford) is first in kills and second in digs, pass attempts, and pass percentage. Offensively, sophomores Lindsey Odell (Dover Plains, N.Y.) and Ashley Tuggle (South Windsor) follow Jaques in kills. Junior Alex Silvestros (North Branford) is the team leader in blocks.

Into its eighth NCAA tournament, Williams brings seven straight wins. The Ephs are making their 13th post-season appearance overall (ECAC and NCAA combined), having reached the NCAA quarterfinals in each of their last three appearances (2002 through 2004). They have advanced into the Round of 16 or deeper in each of their last five NCAA showings.

Five-foot-seven inch outside hitter Melissa Pun earned first-team all-region honors as a freshman in 2006 and is among Williams’ leaders this year in kills, aces and digs. Six-foot freshman Nicole Ballon-Landa and 5-foot-11 inch sophomore Whitney Hitchcock – both middle blockers – are among the Williams’ leaders in both kills and blocks. Freshman Emily Avis has compiled over 1,000 assists.

Williams entered the final week of the regular season ranked third in the NCAA New England Region, then defeated second-ranked Amherst in five matches to capture its fifth NESCAC title in seven years

Eastern had Williams have faced 10 common opponents this season. The Warriors are 1-9 against those teams, Williams 10-2.

The meeting against Williams will be the first between the programs since the Ephs’ sweep of the Warriors at the Williams Quad in 1999. The only other match in the series came in 1993, with Eastern winning in four games at the Stony Brook Invitational in 1993.