Garden City, N.Y. - St. Thomas Aquinas College's most successful softball season in its 42-year history ended today in the semifinals of the NCAA East Regional.

After scoring an exciting and wild 4-2 win over highly regarded Caldwell University earlier in the day, the Spartans were eliminated from the four-team, double-elimination tourney by falling to Bentley University, 8-0, in the semifinal game at Janet L. Ficke Field. Fourth-seeded Bentley (30-15-1) will now meet top-seeded and nationally ranked Adelphi University (45-6) in tomorrow's championship round. The winner will advance to the NCAA Super Regional next week. STAC closed the season at 32-18, the most wins in program history.

It's been a season of "firsts" for the Spartans and that continued today when they earned the program's first-ever East Regional victory with much drama involved. Adriana Coira opened the game for STAC with a single and Abbie Landrum sent her home with a single to open the game's scoring. STAC's starting pitcher and ECC Pitcher of the Year Carissa Della Vecchia was called for five illegal pitches in the bottom of the first inning that forced Head Coach Kristen Sullivan to replace her after facing only two batters. Landrum was inserted as the new pitcher.

STAC added to its lead with clutch hits from freshman DeAnna DeCaro. In the second inning, DeCaro lined a single to right field and came around to score on Della Vecchia's double to left center field. In the fourth inning, Emilie Olivier was hit by a pitch and DeCaro sent her home with a run-producing triple. Tara Hagan then executed a perfect squeeze bunt to score DeCaro and push STAC's lead to 4-0. Caldwell narrowed STAC's led to 4-2 with a pair of runs in the fourth inning but Landrum and solid STAC defense was able to maintain the advantage. Landrum registered the game's final out with the potential tying runs on base. DeCaro finished the game with three hits and also made a spectacular cacth in deep right field.

The exciting win, 24 hours after STAC's heartbreaking 3-2 loss to Adelphi yesterday, avenged two losses to Caldwell earlier in the season. Caldwell is one of the most successful Division II programs in the East Region.

Bentley's Kaylee Mankins stroked a three-run triple in the first inning to give the Falcons a lead that they never relinquished. Payton Doiron limited STAC to four hits to post her 17th win of the season. Mankins finished with six RBI.