MANSFIELD, Conn. --  Samantha Vitka scored two goals in ten seconds midway through the second quarter and Reilly Miller followed soon after by scoring twice in two minutes to spark a run of four consecutive Western New England College goals as the Golden Bears posted an 18-12 non-conference women's lacrosse victory that ended a string of three consecutive losses at the hands of Eastern Connecticut State University Thursday afternoon at Rick McCarthy Field.
 
Western New England (11-4) scored five of the match's first six goals and never trailed, building an eight-goal lead midway through the third quarter on the way to its fourth win in its last five games.
 
After Eastern (7-5) junior attack Caroline Stent (Weatogue) scored twice in a span of 36 seconds in the final minute of the first that cut WNE's early four-goal lead to two, the Warriors never scored as many as two unanswered goals until they trailed by eight with 19 minutes left in the game.
 
The Warriors matched the Golden Bears' ground ball total, forced more turnovers and scored on all three of their extra-man opportunities (as well as one short-handed goal), but had a double-digit disadvantage on draw controls, the visitors winning 24 of 34 in the match. Miller, Vitka and Liz Mazza all won six draws, with their team's 6-1 advantage in that department in the fourth quarter preventing the Warriors from cutting into a 15-9 deficit heading into the final 15 minutes.
 
The team scoring leader, Miller finished with five goals, three coming when the Golden Bears outscored Eastern 7-3 in the second quarter en route to a 12-6 halftime advantage. Vitka had four goals and three assists and Ally Ferraro two goals and two assists.
 
Coming off a 56-goal first season, Stent became the 20^th player in Eastern program history to score100 goals (needing only 27 matches to reach that milestone) when she scored her fourth of four goals in the final minutes of the third quarter to give her 44 this year.
 
Sophomore midfielder Kaylee Drobish (Wallingford) matched Stent with four goals and an assist, with junior attack Jessica Pyrek-Bennett (Monroe) adding two goals. Stent also won three draws and caused three turnovers while junior defender Payton Shannon (Vernon) led the Warriors with eight ground balls and four caused turnovers. Senior defender Aiyana Ward (Waterbury) had five ground balls and caused two turnovers.
 
Western New England sophomore Faith Graveline and Eastern first-year goalie Emma Alford (West Hartford) both totaled nine saves.
 
Eastern closes out the regular season with three Little East Conference matches beginning Saturday at Massachusetts Dartmouth.