Box Score MANSFIELD, Conn. -- Junior defender Jamie Belden (Middlebury) scored the game-ending goal with 4:15 left in overtime as the Eastern Connecticut State University women's soccer team trimmed Trinity College, 2-1, Wednesday night at the Mansfield Outdoor Complex.
Ranked fifth in New England, Trinity (8-3-0) had allowed more than one goal in a match just once this year before Belden scored her second game-winning goal of the season off a corner kick by sophomore defender
Maggie Bodington (Stratford) with 15:45 gone in overtime. Bodington's line drive corner kick from the right side bounced hard into the box behind Trinity senior keeper Monica DiFiori -- who was playing several steps off the line -- and Belden squeezed it through two defenders and just inches over the goal line.
All three goals were scored off re-starts and both of Eastern's came from defenders.
Bodington had given Eastern (9-3-1) the lead 15 minutes into the match with a booming, 20-yard free kick just outside the box which sailed on a line just over the outstretched hands of DiFiori -- who was guarding the near post -- and inside the far right post. The Bantams answered with less than five minutes gone in the second half when senior midfielder Alexa Menard headed in at close range sophomore back Sarah Connors' free kick from the top of the box that rebounded off the crossbar after being deflected by Eastern senior keeper
Rachel Skelton (East Lyme).
The match was a near-draw in all aspects. The Warriors held a slim 16-15 edge in shots and both clubs totaled six corner kicks. Skelton made seven saves and DiFiori five. In addition to Skelton, seven of Eastern's ten field players played all 106 minutes.
The contest was seventh straight in this series which either ended in a draw or was decided by one goal. Trinity had beaten Eastern by a goal the two previous times the teams had met on Eastern's home field, including a 1-0 double-overtime decision in 2013. Eastern won, 3-2, a year ago at Trinity.
Only three of the 21 matches in the series have been determined by more than one goal. Eastern team has won seven matches and the clubs have tied seven in the series which dates back to 1994.
Eastern hosts the University of Southern Maine in a Little East Conference match Saturday at 1 p.m. at Thomas Nevers Field.
