MANSFIELD, Conn. – With their Little East Conference women's lacrosse playoff seeds already firmly in place, Eastern Connecticut State University and Plymouth State University closed out their regular seasons Saturday, with the Panthers scoring five unanswered goals in a span of two minutes in the second quarter on the way to a 16-10 victory at Rick McCarthy Field.
 
The win is the sixth straight in the series for Plymouth (12-4, 6-1 LEC) against Eastern (8-7, 3-4 LEC) and the Panthers move into the LEC playoffs with seven wins in their final eight regular-season games, the only loss in that stretch coming by a score of 7-6 against regular-season champion and defending champion and top-seeded Western Connecticut State University.
 

Second-seeded Plymouth and top-seeded WestConn draw first-round playoff byes while fifth-seeded Eastern, unofficially, visits fourth-seeded University of Southern Maine Tuesday in a first-round game. Southern Maine entered play sharing third place with Keene State College but dropped a 14-11 decision Saturday at WestConn while the Owls routed homestanding Rhode Island College, 18-4, Saturday to gain the third seed. USM trimmed Eastern, 11-9, when the teams met April 9 at Rick McCarthy Field.
 
Against Plymouth Saturday, Eastern never led. The Panthers broke an early tie by outscoring the Warriors 10-2 over a span of 20 minutes in the first half to take an 11-4 advantage into the locker room. Leading by three late in the second quarter, Plymouth scored five straight goals in a span of two minutes to increase its lead to eight goals inside the final two minutes of the half. Sophomore attack Tarryn O'Brien  came off the bench to score three of those five goals , with junior attack Emily Santom setting up two of the goals with assists.
 
Down by nine midway through the third quarter, Eastern strung together its most extended scoring run of the game when sophomore midfielder Kaylee Drobish (Wallingford) connected on back-to-back free-position goals, and junior midfielder Caroline Stent (Weatogue) converted her 50^th goal of the year in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter to cut the Plymouth lead to six, 14-8. In addition to scoring her 50th goal, Stent broke the ten-year-old record for draws in a season, picking up three to give her 91 this year -- one better than Erin Conn in 2012.
 
The goal was the only one of the match on six shots for Stent, who became the seventh player in program history with as many as two 50-goal seasons. In her first year at Eastern in 2021, Stent had 56 goals. For Plymouth, Santom also reached the 50-goal plateau, reaching that milestone midway through the first quarter with her second of four goals midway though the first quarter.
 
Drobish and junior attack Jessica Pyrek-Bennett (Monroe) led Eastern with three goals each, with Pyrek-Bennett winning five of the team's 12 draws and senior defender Aiyana Ward (Waterbury) picking up three ground balls as one of nine players with at least two.
 
Santom, the LEC leader in goals per game (3.71) contributed to seven of Plymouth's goals by adding three assists to her four goals. O'Brien and freshman attack Maddie Hunt  both came off the bench to score three goals apiece. Junior midfielder Julia Mahoney helped her team to a +5 edge in draws with a game-high eight, sophomore midfielder Megan Gaspa digging up four.
 
Conference assist leader Shay Ventresca (Oakdale) managed her 31^st assist of the year – coming on Stent's 50^th goal a minute into the fourth quarter – that moved her to within two points of 100 in her two-year career.
 
Following the game, Ward and defender Bree O'Connor (Rocky Hill) were recognized on Senior Day. Ward is a four-year player at Eastern while O'Connor is wrapping up her second season at Eastern after playing two seasons at Division II Lee University.