MANSFIELD, Conn. – The Eastern Connecticut State University women's lacrosse team continued its recent assault upon the lower echelon teams in the Little East Conference, surging to a six-goal lead 11 minutes into action and easing to a 20-9 victory over the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Friday night at Rick McCarthy Field.

Now 28-4 all-time against UMass (7-6, 1-4 LEC), Eastern (5-8, 3-2 LEC) has outscored Castleton University, Rhode Island College and UMass Dartmouth by a score of 70-15 in conference home victories over this past week. The Warriors' LEC winning percentage of .600 this season now ranks fourth in the conference.  Their three LEC opponents over the past week have a combined LEC mark of 2-13.

With the win, Eastern unofficially clinches one of the six LEC tournament playoff spots and has not yet been mathematically eliminated from winning the LEC regular-season title, gaining a first-round playoff bye or a first-round playoff home match.

The Warriors close out the regular season next week against conference unbeaten co-leaders Western Connecticut State University Wednesday at home and at Plymouth State University (those two teams meet in Danbury on Saturday) a week from Saturday on the road. A winner of five of seven at Rick McCarthy Field this year, Eastern is 0-6 away from home. The top two teams in the final conference standings gain first-round playoff byes, while the No. 3 seed hosts No. 6 and No. 4 hosts No. 5 in first-round matches May 2.

While UMass Dartmouth played Eastern on even terms in terms of ground balls (17-17), free-position goals and attempts (both teams going 2-for-5) and goalie saves (10-10) and won twice as many draws (20-10), the Warriors held the upper hand in shots (+10), turnovers and clears. Eastern was successful on its first 15 clears and 20-of-22 in the game as compared to UMD's 12-for-21 and had roughly half as many turnovers (21-12). Eastern's turnover total was its second-lowest total this year, only behind the 11 it was charged with in its 26-2 fleecing of Rhode Island College Tuesday.

Against UMass, seniors Shay Ventresca (Oakdale) and Jessie Pyrek-Bennett (Monroe) combined for six goals and seven assists and first-year player Alexa Vizzini (Vernon, NJ) improved her team-leading goal total to 41 with seven. Vizzini ranks fifth in the LEC in that category.

Sophomore goalie Emma Alford (West Hartford) made ten saves, five in the first quarter.

A loser of three straight and four of its last six, UMass got eight of its nine goals from conference scoring leaders Maddie Wright (76 goals on the season), a freshman, and junior Melanny Sanchez Alvarez, who also won half of her team's 20 draws.

In its three LEC wins this past week, Vizzini had 20 goals and five assists, Ventresca 17 goals and 12 assists and junior Kaylee Drobish (Wallingford) 11 goals and four assists. Drobish has won 19 draws and nine ground balls and sophomore Abby Parisi (Fairfield) has corralled 15 draws and won six ground balls. Sophomore Emma Oliano (Wallingford) has led the team by causing eight turnovers to go along with six draws, five ground balls, six goals and six assists.

Prior to the match, Eastern honored its three outgoing seniors: Pyrek-Bennett, Ventresca and Caroline Stent (Weatogue), whose career has ended due to a recent injury.