Middletown, Conn. - The No. 3-ranked visiting Trinity College Bantams improved to 12-0 overall and 8-0 in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) moved a step closer to its second straight undefeated regular season by defeating the league rival Wesleyan University Cardinals, 17-10, this evening.  Wesleyan drops to 5-8 overall and 1-7 in the league.  Trinity has won 26 regular-season games in a row.

Trinity jumped out to a 3-0 lead just 2:57 into the contest and never looked back as Wesleyan never possessed the ball during the first three minutes.  Scoring for Trinity were senior tri-captain midfielder Liz Bruno (Andover, Mass.) on a free-position shot, freshman Caroline Hayes (Greenland, N.H.) off a pass from Bruno and junior midfielder Megan Leonhard (Summit, N.J.) unassisted with a high shot.  Leonhard went on to make it a seven-point day with four goals and three assists to pace the powerful Trinity attack which has scored at least 11 goals in each game played this season.  Senior attacker Caitlin Irvine (Westwood, Mass.) scored twice tonight, as did junior attacker Hadley Duncan (Rye, N.Y.).

Though Wesleyan ended Trinity's opening scoring run at three when junior Kayla Ellman netted the first of her three goals for the Cardinals at 25:37 of the first half, Trinity put home three of the next four for a 6-2 bulge and made it an 8-4 game at halftime. A 4-0 burst to start the second half with Leonhard factoring in on three of them with two goals and an assist, upped the Bantam edge to 12-4 with 21:32 to play.  Wesleyan got no close than six (15-9, 6:50 left) the rest of the way.

Also scoring three times for Wesleyan was junior Kaylin Berger as both she and Ellman had a four-point effort as each added an assist.  They rank one-two in scoring for the Cardinals as Ellman has 35 points and Berger 28.  Senior goalie Maggie Drowica stopped 10 shots for Wesleyan over the course of the game.  Trinity split the game between freshman Bridget Kitchen (North Andover, Mass.), who made three saves in the first half, and junior Olivia Whitney (Danvers, Mass.), who also made three stops minding the net for the final 30 minutes.

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