Siena Women's Lacrosse strengthened their playoff positioning on Saturday with a career day from redshirt sophomore Jordan Bentley and a stingy defensive team effort to hold off pesky Manhattan 9-8 at Riverdale's Gaelic Park on Saturday.

Siena (11-5 overall, 6-1 MAAC) has moved into first place all alone for the moment as Fairfield dropped their game against Niagara 11-10 on Saturday. 

The Stags are 5-1, but do own the head-to-head tie-breaker over the Saints in the event that there is one via their win against them last weekend. 

Siena has assured themselves of a top two seed in the MAAC Tournament and has earned a bye for the opening round. 

That would make the Saints hosting the semifinal round on Saturday, May 5 as either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed depending on how the regular season finishes out with an opponent to be determined. 

Bentley, the Queensbury, NY native, has been on an absolute tear of late by averaging four points per contest in the last six games including setting a new career-high with five goals on Saturday. 

The midfielder, who transferred from Richmond two seasons ago, has also displayed a meteoric rise in her penchant for gaining possession by averaging 7.5 draw controls per game over her last four. 

Bentley had six draw controls on Saturday and passed over 100 draw controls in her career as a Saint last game after maintaining 12 draw controls. 

It was a nip and tuck game throughout, with the Saints holding a narrow 7-6 halftime advantage. 

Both goalkeepers and defense played it close to the vest in the second half with Saints goalkeeper Sabrina Krasner and Jaspers goalkeeper Ashley Gambardella making their opponent work for it. 

After the opening 13 and a half minutes of the third quarter was scoreless, Rebecca Gilhooley broke through on a pass from Kelly Logue and Bentley added another score within 53 seconds to provide their biggest lead of the game at three. 

Colleen Rattigan scored with 11:20 remaining and Jillian Reiner found the back of the net with 48 second left to cut the deficit to one for the Jaspers (6-9 overall, 2-4 MAAC), but the Saints won the following draw control and played keep away to drain the clock and preserve their third straight head-to-head victory against Manhattan. 

The Saints held a 14-7 advantage in draw controls and also received a big lift from Taryn Asselin, who also collected six draw controls.  

Mary Soures, Amanda Nieman and Kelly Logue also scored for the Saints.

Saints' senior goalkeeper Sabrina Krasner also earned her 13^th career victory to move into fourth-place all alone, passing Beth Zimmer (played from 2005-2006) among Siena women's lacrosse goalkeepers.

In her sights next would be Sammy Horton (2016-2019), who ranks third all-time in wins with 23.

Siena will next travel to Niagara to take on the Purple Eagles (9-6, 3-3 MAAC) on Wednesday at 3 p.m. from Niagara Field. 

The teams have split their previous four meetings with the Saints beating Niagara 14-9 in last season's match up.