Lewiston, Maine - The top-ranked and defending NCAA Division III champion Trinity College Bantams broke away from a 3-3 tie through the first 24 minutes by outscoring the Bates College Bobcat women's lacrosse team, 14-1, over the final 36 minutes for a 17-4 New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) victory this afternoon on Garcelon Field.  Trinity extends its winning streak to 13 games and improves its overall mark to 5-0 and its league mark to 2-0.  Bates drops to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the league.  The Bantams received hat tricks from five different players: Megan Leonhard, Hadley Duncan, Caroline Hayes, Molly Cox and Kaitlin Hildebrand. Martha Griffin and Shea Kusiak had two assists apiece.  Trinity outshot Bates 30-6, including a 19-1 difference in the second half. 

Bates held a 3-2 lead on Kelan McCann's second goal of the game, scored with 15:57 left in the first half, as she ventured into the teeth of Trinity's defense and snuck a shot past Bantam freshman goalie Emily Mooney while absorbing contact.  Duncan answered emphatically 47 seconds later for Trinity, charging up the middle of the field and burying the equalizer past Bates goalkeeper Hannah Jeffrey to begin a run of eight consecutive goals by Trinity that extended more than four minutes into the second half. The score remained, 3-3, until Duncan added her second tally with 5:46 left in the period. That followed a Trinity timeout at the 8:02 mark, after which both teams traded turnovers. Hayes picked up a loose ball, leading to Duncan's go-ahead goal. The Bantams won the ensuing draw and with 4:28 left, Leonhard's individual move faked out a Bates defender at the top of the circle, freeing her up to shoot into the top left corner for a 5-3 Trinity lead. Leonhard won the next two draws, helping Trinity add goals by Kusiak and Leonhard in the final minute for a 7-3 halftime lead.

Trinity won its fourth straight draw to begin the second half, but turned the ball over to Bates, which gave it back soon after. With 26:45 to go in the period, Hayes scored on a Kusiak assist to make it 8-3, and Bates received a yellow card on the play that gave the Bantams the ball right back and led to Hildebrand's first goal on another Kusiak assist. Hayes won the ensuing draw and quickly scored again to make it 10-3 before Bates interrupted Trinity's run.  With 24:12 left, Bates closed the gap to 10-4, on a play that began with Wally Pierce's caused turnover and ended with a shot by Bridget Meedzan that was deflected by a Trinity defender and ricocheted past Mooney for the score.  Trinity resumed its dominant play, however, fueled by four more draw controls in a row, to pad its lead into the double digits at 14-4 on goals by Duncan, sophomore Renee Olsen and back-to-back scores by Cox.

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