WALTHAM, Mass. – The fourth-seeded Bentley University men's soccer team begins its quest for the Northeast-10 title Wednesday afternoon when they host fifth-seeded Franklin Pierce in the quarterfinals at 1:00 pm. It will be the second meeting in just over a week between the two teams.

The Falcons secured the fourth-seed and their first home playoff match since 2010 by winning their final two contests of the regular season; 2-0 at Franklin Pierce Oct. 23 and 1-0 at Southern Connecticut Oct. 26.

Franklin Pierce won its regular season finale over Le Moyne 3-2, but prior to that, had gone just 1-2-2 in its previous five after starting NE-10 play with a 6-1 record.

On the other hand, Bentley will enter the tournament as one of the league's hottest teams, with six wins in its last seven matches and a record of 6-1-1 since a 3-0 loss to UMass-Lowell Sept. 25. In fact, of the eight playoff teams, Bentley's 19 points over its last eight NE-10 regular season matches is second only to Merrimack's 22 over the same span.

In the second half of the season Bentley has tightened up defensively and has started to resemble the 2010 squad that rode strong defense and timely goal scoring all the way to the NE-10 finals. Since a 4-4 tie against New Haven on Sept. 29 where the Chargers scored three goals in the final 11 minutes, Bentley has allowed just four goals total in its last seven matches. They allowed 15 goals in its first six NE-10 matches.

As usual, the back-four has been led by team captain and standout center-back Weston Zeiner (North Granby, Conn./Granby Memorial), who has started all 16 of the team's matches. But head coach Gary Crompton has also gotten solid seasons from the other three members, each of whom has started at least 15 matches. Zeiner's partner in the middle, freshman Stephen Silva (Suffield, Conn./Suffield) has been in the starting lineup 15 times, and left and right backs Jordan Bridge (Tolland, Conn./Tolland) and Joe Avery (Schenectady, N.Y./Mohonasen) have started all 16.

Behind them is senior goalie Alex Pilitsis (Brunswick, Maine/North Yarmouth Academy), who has been named the NE-10 Goalkeeper of the Week two out of the last three weeks and has five shutouts this season.

Offensively the Falcons have been led by senior Brennan DaCosta (San Diego, Calif./Westview), the reigning NE-10 Player of the Week after he scored the game-winning goals in both of last week's victories. He leads the team in both goals (8) and points (19), which is tied for fifth and tied for seventh in the conference, respectively.

After DaCosta, Bentley's goal scoring has been very balanced with 12 others scoring at least one goal. Junior Cody Osgood (Harvard, Mass./The Bromfield School) and sophomore Michael Kahn (Bellevue, Wash./Newport) are the closest to DaCosta with three goals each.

In contrast to Bentley, Franklin Pierce isn't nearly as balanced on offense. Four players, Nico Mueller, Greg Giguere, Gareth Dudney and Ryan Ruffing have accounted for 21 of the 30 goals the team has scored this year. Mueller and Giguere lead the way with six each.

In goal the Ravens rely on senior Jake Wright, who has started all 16 matches this season and sports a record of 10-4-2.

This will be the second meeting all-time between the two programs in the postseason, and a rematch of the 2010 title match that Franklin Pierce won 1-0. That postseason was the last time Bentley hosted a playoff match, a 1-0 quarterfinal victory over New Haven in overtime with Zeiner scoring the winner. They then went on to beat Southern Connecticut in penalty kicks in the semifinals.