By Staff Writer Tighe Ratcliffe.

On Saturday’s women’s soccer game between the UMass Dartmouth Corsairs and the Western Connecticut Colonials, the Corsairs scored a victory. By doing so, the Corsairs gained a spot in the upcoming Little East Conference women’s soccer championship.

The game started at 6:30 pm, and 13 minutes in, junior Ella Rath of the Corsairs scored the first goal of the night. In the home field game, Rath staked the Corsairs (6-6-5, 3-2-3 LEC) with an early lead when she received a pass from freshman Sarah Viera. Viera helped her score her team-best ninth tally of the season roughly four minutes afterwards, extending their lead 2-0. This was the game winning goal for UMass Dartmouth that evening. The opposing Colonials (11-7, 5-2 LEC) cut the lead in half with 4:06 remaining in the game after senior Allison Oakley (Beekman, N.Y.) scored from a pass from her teammate, junior Jasmine Grey (Naugatuck, Conn.). The Western Connecticut Colonials would have had a chance to even up to scores in the last few seconds of the game, but were foiled on a point blank stop from Corsair sophomore goalkeeper Jaimee O’Brien (West Springfield, Mass.) on a corner kick at the end of the game.

This was O’Brien’s fifth victory in the fall season with a seven-save effort in the goal for UMass Dartmouth. Also during the game, freshman Karly Martin (Bristol, Conn.) made five stops while getting her first setback of the year in the goal for Western Connecticut. Overall, the Colonials overshot the Corsairs by a 16-8 margin. All the while taking six of seven corner kicks that evening. The Corsairs are guaranteed to place in either fifth or sixth place in the final Little East line up, and gain a spot in the league tournament starting on October 30.