Hartford, Conn. – Senior co-captain attacker Rachel Romanowsky (Hampstead, N.H.) had five goals and two assists and freshman attacker Shea Kusiak (Longmeadow, Mass.) scored four times to lead the Trinity College Bantams to a 15-6 victory against the visiting Williams College Ephs in the opening round of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Women's Lacrosse Championship Tournament this afternoon on Sheppard Field. Trinity, ranked No. 3 in the nation, improves to a best-ever 15-0, tying last year's (15-4) win total for the most in program history. Top-seeded Trinity earns the right to host the NESCAC Semifinals and Finals on May 7 and 8 for the second season in a row. The Bantams will host No. 5-seeded Tufts, which won at No. 4-seeded Middlebury, 13-12, today, in the NESCAC Semifinals on Saturday in its semifinal matchup. No. 2-seeded Bowdoin will play No. 3-seeded Colby in the other NESCAC Semifinal at Trinity next weekend. Last May, Williams defeated Trinity on Sheppard Field in the NESCAC Semifinals, 11-10, en route to a NESCAC title, and the Ephs had eliminated Trinity in three of the last four league tournaments with all three defeats taking place at Trinity. Williams' season ends at 8-9 after four consecutive losses.
With the game tied at 1-1, sophomore midfielder Megan Leonhard (Summit, N.J.) ignited a 5-0 Bantam run with the second of her two goals, at the 21:28 mark. Five different Bantams scored during the spurt to give the home team a 6-1 edge heading into intermission. Williams rallied to score the first three goals of the second half to close to 6-4 less than five minutes after the break. Romanowsky ended the run with an unassisted goal at the 21:43 mark, but Williams junior attacker Margie Fulton (Wellesley, Mass.) scored her second tally of the second half 1:30 later to cut the Trinity lead back to a pair. Romanowsky and Kusiak took over from there, sandwiching Fulton's third goal around six combined goals between them over a 10-minute stretch to give Trinity a comfortable 13-6 advantage. Trinity added two late scores to account for a 15-6 final.
Trinity senior co-captain midfielder Alisen Urquhart finished a goal and two assists, while junior midfielder Liz Bruno (Andover, Mass.) scored twice with a game-high seven caused turnovers, and sophomore attacker Kaitlin Hildebrand (Berwyn, Pa.) added a goal and an assist. Kusiak added a game-high four ground balls to her four goals, and classmate Olivia Whitney (Danvers, Mass.) made five saves in the Bantam goal. Williams senior tri-captain Anne Marie Burke (Lower Merion, Pa.) had a goal and an assist, while juniors Meera Sivalingam (Philadelphia, Pa.) and Kaitlin Ellis (Darien, Conn.) also scored, senior tri-captain goalkeeper Julia Schreiber (Cockeysville, Md.) made 10 saves, and junior Emily Whicker (Potomac, Md.) notched a game-high five draw controls.
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