DANBURY, Conn. – Junior forward Jill Ritrosky (Pittsfield, MA) scored a career-high 28 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds as the Eastern Connecticut State University women's basketball team kept its Little East Conference title hopes alive with a 66-50 victory over Western Connecticut State University Tuesday evening at Feldman Arena.

With one regular-season conference game remaining Saturday against visiting University of Southern Maine, Eastern (16-8, 9-4 LEC) trails leader University of Massachusetts Dartmouth by one game, the Corsairs edging homestanding Rhode Island College, 49-45 to move to within one victory of its first LEC regular-season championship. An Eastern win and a UMass Dartmouth loss against visiting Keene State College Saturday makes Eastern and UMass Dartmouth co-champions, but the Warriors would unofficially be accorded the No. 1 seed based upon tie-breakers.

Ritrosky, having shot just 26.1 percent in the Warriors' recent two conference losses, was 10-of-18 from the floor and 8-of-11 from the stripe to help Eastern snap Western's (16-8, 6-7 LEC) five-game winning streak and complete its first season sweep of the Colonials in six years. Western had won nine of 12 home contests this year.

Eastern forced a season-high 26 turnovers, capitalizing for 30 points on those Western miscues and outscoring the hosts by 27 in that department. The No.1-ranked rebounding team in the LEC, Eastern dominated with a 15-5 advantage on the offensive glass that produced a 17-1 advantage in second-chance points.

Sophomore guard Jordyn Nappi (Southington) broke out of a 3-for-19 shooting performance in the last two losses by converting six of 13 against Western and finishing with 15 points to go along with four assists. In an effort to boost a sagging offense which had averaged only 41.5 points in two straight losses, Nappi returned to the starting lineup for the first time since Jan. 5 and responded with her second-highest point total of the year and fourth-best shooting percentage from the floor (46.2) this season.

The Warriors used a late first-half surge to post a seven-point halftime lead, then jumped quickly in the second half to move out to a 17-point, 46-29 lead four minutes into play. Ritrosky and Nappi evenly split Eastern's points in that 12-2 run, with Western missing three of four shots and commiting four turnovers on its first eight possessions.

Western made a modest run which sliced Eastern's 17-point lead in half with nine minutes left, but Ritrosky swished two free throws and sank a jumper off a Western turnover, and senior guard Taylor McBride (Willimantic) turned her own steal into a layup that restored a 14-point lead with eight minutes left. The lead never fell under double digits the rest of the way. The double-double was the  ninth in the last 19 games for Ritrosky, who exceeded the career 900-point plateau early in the second half. Sophomore guard Julia DePoi (Brookfield) added five points, six rebounds, three blocks and three steals.

McBride, who eclipsed the 400-assist mark in Saturday's loss at UMass Dartmouth, had three assists, six rebounds and three steals.

Sophomore guards Colleen Cosker (12) and Emily Dobson (11) combined for 23 points for Western but were the team's only double-digit scorers. The pair also combined for nine turnovers.

Western played its first game this season without 5-foot-11 inch senior Caroline Brasa, the team's leading scorer, rebounder and three-point shooter and a 1,000-point scorer.  However, in a 12-point loss at Eastern Jan. 29, Brasa was 1-for-12 from the floor and finished with only four points and five rebounds in 30 minutes.