WALTHAM, Mass. – Coming off its most successful regular season in seven years, the Bentley men's soccer team is seeded third in the Northeast-10 playoffs and will host sixth seeded New Haven on Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 p.m.

With 10 wins in the books, the Falcons won more games in the regular year than any Bentley team since the 2003 squad won 11. They also did an excellent job protecting their home turf this season, not losing a match and going 7-0-1 at home.

The Falcons have ridden strong defense and balanced scoring to get to where they are now. Bentley has allowed just 10 goals all season, an average of 0.59 per match which is third in the NE-10. In fact, the Falcons have posted five straight shutouts and have not allowed a goal in 584 minutes. The last goal they allowed was against Franklin Pierce on Oct. 12 in the sixth minute of that match, which was six matches ago. In all, the Falcons have 10 clean sheets on the year.

Goalkeeper Mike Nikiforov (Framingham, Mass./Framingham) has been a big part of that stingy defense. The grad student has eight shutouts on the year, second in the conference, and is playing to a 0.61 goals against average and a .877 save percentage, both of which are third in conference.

Bentley's balanced scoring is best illustrated by the fact that 13 different players have scored goals this year, and five players share the team lead with three. Sophomore Brennan DaCosta (San Diego, Calif./Westview) is the team's leading scorer with three goals, two of them game-winners, and a team-best four assists.

New Haven will come into the game with an overall record of 7-9-1 and 6-7 in the conference. They have won two straight, defeating Saint Michael's 2-0 and UMass-Lowell 3-1, both at home. Freshman forward Gui Dos Santos leads the team in goals with five, and sophomore forward Joe D'Antonio is right behind him with four. Junior Jonathan Creem sees most of the action in net with 12 starts on the year. New Haven is making its first NE-10 playoff appearance since joining the conference three years ago.

These two teams met back on Sept. 5 in Waltham with the Falcons coming away with a 2-1 victory behind two goals from sophomore Weston Zeiner (North Granby, Conn./Granby) and six saves from Nikiforov. This will be the first postseason meeting ever between the two programs, and Bentley has a 4-3 edge in the all-time series.

Tuesday's match will be the program's first home playoff game since a quarterfinals game in 2003 against Bryant, which Bentley on penalty kicks. The winner of this match will meet the winner of the match between second seeded Southern Connecticut and seventh seeded Stonehill on Friday at the higher seed.