EASTON, PA. - The Army women's basketball team captured the program's first-ever regular season conference crown as the Black Knights defeated Lafayette, 71-52, on Tuesday night at the Kirby Sports Center.

Thanks to Bucknell and Holy Cross both losing tonight, Army (17-9, 11-2) captured the outright title with the victory, and the No. 1 seed in the Patriot League Tournament.

"I am so excited and proud to host," commented first-year head coach Maggie Dixon. "I give the credit to the girls. It was their decision that they wanted to challenge and it was everyone's common goal to win a championship. We were able to pull out the close games and dominate on the road."

"We tried to be calm until we got back to the locker room and then we just went absolutely crazy," said senior co-captain Megan Vrabel.

Army held Lafayette scoreless during the opening six minutes, as the Black Knights jumped out to the early 15-0 advantage at the 13:50 mark. Cara Enright converted on a three-point play to start the scoring and Jen Hansen connected on a three-point basket capped the run, while Alex McGuire led the Black Knights with five points in the spurt.

"Coach (Dixon) has told us that the first five minutes of the game are the most important," said Vrabel. "We really fed off of that tonight."

The Leopards finally got on the board at the 13:38 mark as Vanessa Van De Venter converted her second of two free throws, making the margin 15-1. Lafayette connected on its first basket from the field with 11:28 remaining in the first half as Brittany Purr made a layup cutting the Army advantage to 19-3. The Leopards had shot 0-of-12 from the field during the first eight and a half minutes of the tilt. Purr's bucket was the beginning of a 6-0 run for Lafayette as they cut the lead to 19-7 with 10:01 left in the stanza.

The Black Knights continued the scoring onslaught during the next six minutes as they outscored the Leopards 10-3 and went ahead, 29-10, with 4:11 still to play. After a six-minute delay due to electrical difficulties with the game clock, Lafayette finished the stanza on a 8-3 run cutting the halftime margin to 32-18.

Army held Lafayette to just 18.5 percent (5-27) shooting from the field during the first half, while Army shot 37 percent (10-27) from the field and 76.9 percent (10-13) from the foul line. Stefanie Stone had a game-high nine points at the intermission.

After a quiet first half, Vrabel came out and scored nine of the Black Knights first 15 points of the second half, as Army took a 47-29 lead with 14:31 left in the contest. Army had gone up by its largest advantage thus far as the clock went inside the 10-minute mark, 56-35, as Megan Evans had scored seven of Army's nine points during the run.

The Leopards tried to make a comeback cutting the margin to 13, 61-48, with 3:34 remaining in the contest, but Stone put the contest completely out of reach with six straight points as the Black Knights went up 65-48 with less than two minutes left in the contest.

Four Black Knights finished in double figures led by Stone's 15 points. McGuire and Vrabel each chipped in 11 points, while Enright added 10 points. Evans, who only saw 10 minutes of work, finished with seven points and six rebounds.