SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Senior Alyssa Ritchie (North Andover, Mass./North Andover) became just the fifth player in Northeast-10 women's lacrosse history to record 300 career points as Bentley University trounced AIC 21-4 Thursday afternoon. The Falcons have now won four games in a row and five of six, and they improve to 8-6 overall and 6-1 in the NE-10.

Reaching 300 points is just the latest milestone in Ritchie's career. She already is Bentley's career leader in goals, assists and points with a scoring line of 180-123-303. She's now just 24 points away from breaking the conference career scoring record that is held by Katie Lambert of Stonehill, though she will have to battle it out with Michelle Kelly of Stonehill, who currently has 302 points.

Coming into the game with 296 points, number 300 came when she scored her third goal of the game 49 seconds into the second half. She had a game-high seven points on five goals and two assists, and has scored 31 points in the last four games.

The game was close initially as the teams traded the first six goals, until Bentley surged ahead with a six-goal run to lead 10-3 at halftime. Freshman Lauren Canepa (Hingham, Mass./Hingham) played a big part in the run, scoring three straight unassisted goals at one point.

In the second half Ritchie scored three times and Canepa added two more, giving each five for the game. Junior Jaclyn Griffin (Barrington, Ill./Barrington) and freshman Torre Taylor (Locust Valley, N.Y./Friends Academy) each scored two second half goals as well to complete hat tricks.

With a 6-1 conference record, Bentley is now tied with New Haven for second place with three games to go, though the Chargers hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The Falcons will play their second to last home game of the season on Sunday afternoon against Merrimack at 12:00 p.m.

2009-04-16