South Hadley, MA --- Alana Keating (Leominster, MA), Sara Lyons (Pittsford, NY), Caitlin Boermeester (Billerica, MA), Alyssa Paul (Schaghticoke, NY), Amelia Harvey (Huntington, NY) and Alexa Itsines (Nazareth, PA) all established new career-highs in scoring as WPI women's basketball opened NEWMAC play with a 61-16 road victory Wednesday evening.  The Engineers are now 5-0 on the season while the Lyons slip to 0-5. 

After a 2-2 tie, WPI rattled off the next 19 points - sandwiched around five points to start the spurt by Stasha Greenalch (Newington, CT) and five to end the run from Keating - and never saw its advantage slip below double figures the rest of the way.  As a team the Crimson and Gray connected on an eye-popping 23 of its first 35 (65.7%) field goal attempts and finished the game shooting a season-best 56.3% from the floor. 

As impressive as the offensive display was for the Engineers, the defensive effort may have been better.  The guests held Mount Holyoke to just 17.6% shooting from the floor and held the hosts to just two points each in the second and third quarters.  As a team WPI has held its opponents to just one or two points if four of the season's 20 quarters so far.  

Keating led the way offensively for the Boynton Hillers with eight points, including a pair of three-pointers.  Lyons chipped in with seven points, Boermeester joined Brittney Lambert (Hudson, NH) with six, Greenalch and Paul finished with five points and Harvey, Itsines, Ama Biney (Worcester, MA) and Maddie Blake (Bedford, NH) all drained two baskets for four points.  

Paul and Biney paced WPI to a huge advantage on the glass with six rebounds apiece.  Katie Nugent (Huntington, NY) added five boards as the Engineers outrebounded the Lyons 37-14 and allowed the hosts just two offensive rebounds on the night.  Additionally WPI scored 26 points in the paint while not allowing Mount Holyoke to score at all inside the paint.  

Leah Hodges (New Haven, CT) poured in a game-high 10 points for MHC while Katlyn Grove (Bernardston, MA) canned a pair of trifectas to account for the other six points.  Hodges, Ireland Clare Kennedy (Oakland, CA) and Raquel Fitzpatrick (Providence, RI) all corralled four rebounds for the Lyons. 

WPI closes out its two-game road trip to Western Mass on Saturday at 2pm at Smith.  Mount Holyoke hosts MIT Saturday at 1pm.