NEW LONDON, Conn. – For the third consecutive match, first-year forward
Emily McKelvey netted two goals, doing so in the first 14 minutes of Monday's road matchup against Mitchell College, while senior defender
Arianna Tomassi had two of her own in a dominant 11-0 win for the Warriors. The victory for Eastern moved them to 3-0-0 for the first time since the 2016 season, when they went 13-4-2 overall and 6-0-1 in conference play, and was the most single-game goals scored in program history, breaking the previous record of nine goals set multiple times.
Named the Little East Conference Rookie of the Week just hours before kickoff, it took McKelvey just under 14 minutes to reach two goals, and she now has a conference-best six goals on the year, which, as it currently stands, ties her for the Division III national lead in goals scored with Sarah Lawrence College's Katey Beaver through three games.
After scoring those two goals early on, an own goal by the Mariners in the 18
th minute on a corner kick attempt from the Warriors extended their edge to three goals, before Tomassi scored a pair of goals before the end of the opening 45 minutes of action. Leading 5-0 at the break, Eastern did not allow Mitchell to cross midfield with the ball at all for the entirety of the first half, while holding a 29-0 lead in shots and a 15-0 edge in shots on goal.
Junior goalkeeper Ronnie Keays came up with 11 saves for Mitchell through the midway point of play, as the Eastern offense totaled 10 corner kicks. Senior midfielder
Emily Dunlea led the team in shots with seven and shots on goal with six, nearly finding the back of the net on multiple occasions for her first goal of the season.
As part of the five-goal first half, junior midfielder
Faith Corona and senior forward
Anna Loveless both recorded assists, while senior goalkeeper
Kaeden Dublin did not have to make a save between the pipes for Eastern. Corona would tally another assist in the second half as she helped on first-year forward
Alana Burnell's second goal of the season in the 47
th minute.
Burnell would then proceed to get an assist of her own in the 53
rd minute as her pass connected with senior defender
Abby Kearns near the left side of the goal mouth, giving the Stafford, Connecticut native her first collegiate goal in 23 career matches. It would end up being a three-goal flurry in under nine minutes of second-half action as junior defender
Adeline Stevens also got her first collegiate goal in her 20
th career match on a penalty kick in the 54
th minute of play.
Later in the half, Kearns would net her second goal of the game, getting Eastern to that program-record-breaking 10
th goal in the 70
th minute, which came after first-year defender
Juliette Krause notched her first collegiate goal about 10 minutes before that. Rounding out the scoring for the Warriors was sophomore midfielder
Sophia Pearson with her first collegiate goal in the 75
th minute of the 11-goal offensive explosion Eastern had.
As part of the 11-0 victory, six of the 10 goals, not counting the own goal by the Mariners, were scored by defenders, while four different Warriors recorded their first collegiate goals in Kearns, Stevens, Krause, and Pearson. As a team, Eastern finished not allowing a shot to the Mariners, while their offense racked up 41 total shots, 24 shots on goal, and 12 corner kicks, forcing Keays to make 13 saves for Mitchell (nine goals allowed), while sophomore goalkeeper Olivia Moses made one, allowing two goals.
Eastern kicks off Little East Conference play this Saturday at home when they take on Keene State College at Rick McCarthy Field with a 1:00 PM start. The Warriors have tied the last three matchups with the Owls, while winning the previous three before that, making them 3-0-3 in their last six matches against their conference rival.
