Box Score
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. --  First-team All-LEC guard Elise Magro connected on two three-pointers to spark an 11-point VTSU Castleton run in the first half that gave the Spartans a 12-point lead early in the second quarter and an eventual 65-39 Little East Conference women's basketball victory over Eastern Connecticut State University Thursday evening at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
 
The victory for Castleton (8-7, 2-4 LEC) ends a three-game conference losing streak and a nine-game slide against Eastern (5-10, 3-3 LEC), which had last lost to Castleton on its home court in 2018-19 in the Spartans' first season in the conference. The Warriors were playing their first home game after six straight road contests had netted them a 2-4 record.
 
Playing the season after losing all five of its starters from last year's LEC co-championship team, Eastern shot 21 percent in the game and was out-rebounded by ten. The Warriors led only once in the game and by only one point on junior forward Taylor Salato's (East Haven) putback  with three minutes left in the first half.
 
Ironically, Castleton's three three-pointers in its decisive 11-0 run that spanned the end of the first quarter and first  2:30 of the second were its only baskets from distance in 11 tries in the game. The team leader in three-point field goals, Stasia Epler's bomb gave her team a four-point lead after one quarter. After an opening miss by Eastern to open the second quarter, Magro opened her team's second quarter with a basket from distance that made it a seven-point game, and she closed the run with another three-pointer 2:30 into the quarter that pushed the Castleton lead to double-digits, 28-16.
 
Magro led a balanced Castleton attack with a game-high 16 points and added six rebounds and four assists with only one turnover in 34 minutes.  Epler had 14 points and eight rebounds,  6-foot-1 inch Liz Bailey (5-of-8 FG) adding 12 points, eight rebounds and three blocks, and first-year player Arianna Coombs ten points and nine rebounds.
 
Eastern, which had won two of its previous three (on the road), managed only 13 field goals (the starters were 12-of-50 from the floor) and missed all 11 of its three-point field goals in being held to its second-lowest scoring output of the year. Ranked second in the LEC in free throw percentage, the Warriors canned 13 of 14 tries, with Salato and senior guard Cara McGettigan (Southbury) both 4-of-4.
 
Coming off a 35-point (one point shy of the Eastern game record), 23-rebound effort Tuesday in a three-point conference win at Keene State College, Salato had her fifth double-double with 12 points and a game-high 17 rebounds.  Junior guard Kya Mayo (Middletown) had ten points, four rebounds and two assists.
 
Eastern visits Plymouth State University Saturday at 1 p.m.