WALTHAM, Mass. – The Bentley women's lacrosse team secured its second straight win to start the season on Sunday, this time knocking off No. 14 Dowling in a non-conference game 9-8 in the team's home opener. Sophomore Taylor Lunden (Agawam, Mass./Agawam) had four goals.

Bentley took a 9-7 lead in the second half after consecutive goals from junior Erin O'Connor (Longmeadow, Mass./Longmeadow) at the 12:32 mark, and Lunden at the 10:45 mark to break a 7-7 tie.

Neither team scored again for a while as Bentley held onto that lead until the final minute, when Dowling's Katie Meinecke netted her fourth goal of the afternoon from senior Jackie Andersen with 28 seconds left to make it a one goal game.

After a Dowling timeout, Bentley's Kathleen Gillespie (Topsfield, Mass./Masconomet) secured her seventh, and most important draw control of the afternoon, and the Falcons were able to run out the clock to finish the victory.

Dowling led 4-2 after 20 minutes of the first half as Andersen and Meinecke each found the back of the net twice. But the Falcons stormed back with a 4-0 run to lead 6-4 at the break. Four different players each had a goal during the run; Lunden, Kelsey Howard (Scarborough, Maine/Scarborough), Gillespie and senior Jackie Brown (Brookfield, Conn./Brookfield). The run took a little over three minutes.

Dowling opened the second half with a goal from Allie Merrill just 1:40 in, but Lunden answered back less than three minutes later with her third goal of the game to make it 7-5 for Bentley. Dowling then received goals from Meinecke and Merrill back to back to tie the game 7-7 with 14:28 to play.

O'Connor's goal then gave the Falcons the lead back, and Lunden made it 9-7 with her fourth goal of the afternoon.

Sophomore goalie Lauren Ochs (Rochester, N.Y./Irondequoit) made 12 saves for Bentley.

The Falcons now depart for Florida, where they will play two games next week. They start with a Northeast-10 game against Stonehill, which comes Tuesday night at 7:00 pm in Kissimmee, Fla.