WILLIMANTIC, Conn. -- The Eastern Connecticut State University women's basketball team moved within a season-ending victory that would guaranteed it no worse than a share of its tenth Little East Conference regular-season title, leading wire-to-wire after scoring the first seven points of the game in a 71-42 victory over the University of Southern Maine Saturday at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
The win is the 11th straight overall and 11th straight in the conference for Eastern (20-4, 14-1 LEC) which can finish with no worse than a share of first place in the regular season with a road win over Western Connecticut State University (5-9 LEC) Wednesday. The Warriors, winners of 20 games in a season for the 19th time, remain a half-game ahead of two-time defending champion Rhode Island College (20-3, 13-1 LEC), which has two LEC regular-season games remaining. The Anchorwomen, which had an 18-game winning streak ended against Eastern Wednesday at Geissler Gym in their only conference loss, routed visiting UMass Boston, 75-30, Saturday.
Eastern and Rhode Island will both receive first-round LEC tournament byes as the top two seeds, with Eastern hosting a tournament semifinal game at Geissler Gym on Feb. 23.
Seniors Danielle O'Brien (Rockland, MA) and Mariah Dunn (Meriden) combined for the first seven points of the game for Eastern and the Warriors ran away with the game by expanding a 12-point halftime lead by outscoring Southern Maine (6-17, 4-10 LEC), 20-6 in the third quarter to take a 26-point lead into the final quarter. In holding USM to 30.2 shooting from the floor (3-of-15 from distance), Eastern limited its opponent to less than 50 points for the ninth time in the last 11 games and for the 15th time this year.
While the Huskies were missing 13 of 15 shots from the floor in the third quarter, Eastern was 7-of-13, getting five points from senior Julie Keckler (Trumbull) and four from Dunn and six rebounds from senior All-America Anna Barry (Andover).
In defeating USM for the eighth straight time, Eastern got eight points, 13 rebounds, five assists and two blocks from Barry, with O'Brien and Keckler (four assists) sharing game-high scoring honors with 14 each and Dunn adding 12 points and six rebounds. Making her second career start, senior Martha Chatman (Meriden) had six rebounds in 14 minutes and junior Cara McGettigan (Southbury) came off the bench for four rebounds in seven minutes.
Led by Barry, Eastern out-rebounded USM better than 2-to-1, outscoring the Huskies by 11 (13-2) on second-chance opportunities.
For Eastern, all 14 healthy players saw at least six minutes of action and all had a point and/or a rebound.
Eastern looks for a regular-season sweep of WestConn Wednesday, having won, 58-47, Jan. 18 at Geissler Gym.