WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State softball swept Bridgewater State in a doubleheader by a score of 4-2 in each game, as the Owls claimed the 2024 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season title.
Westfield earns the conference crown for the first time since 2011 and will be the number one seed in the upcoming MASCAC conference tournament. Westfield will host a double-elimination round game on Friday at 3:00 p.m. against an opponent to be determined.
Westfield knew they could clinch the league title with a sweep today, and the Owls got a pair of gritty pitching performances from their top two starters, as they have all season long.
In the opener, Katherine Canty (Natick, Mass.) (W, 10-3) tossed a complete game, allowing three hits and two runs, striking out nine while walking three.
In the nightcap, senior Stephanie Scoville (Northfield, Mass./Pioneer) (W, 11-3) tossed another complete game, striking out nine, including the final hitter of the game looking with a runner on base for a dramatic finish. Scoville scattered six hits, walked four and allowed just two earned runs.
In the opener, Westfield had to play from behind, as the bears scratched together a run in the first without the benefit of a base hit, as Emily Marcotte (N. Dighton, Mass.) walked to lead offthe game, was sacrificed to second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a ground out from Makayla Ansell (Menifee, Calif.).
Westfield jumped in front with three runs in the third, after a two-out walk to #9 hitter Arielle Ostman (Woodbury, Minn.), and the Owls made Bridgewater pay with three straight RBI singles from Jordyn Lummus (Pittsfield, Mass.), Christina Ciampa (Rockville, Conn.) and Hannah Wodecki (Southampton, Mass./Hampshire) to take a 3-1 lead.
The Bears responded with a run in the top of the fourth , when Ansell singled, and later came around to score on Olivia Hargreaves RBI single to right.
Westfield added an insurance run in the fifth as Lummus singled and later came around to score on an error.
Canty shut the door in the sixth and seventh, getting a double play ball to Alyssa Clark (Uxbridge, Mass.) to erase a leadoff single from Ansell in the top of the sixth, and working a 1-2-3 seventh, punching out the final two hitters of the game.
Ansell finished 2-3 for the Bears, with Hargreaves (L, 7-5) tossing a complete game in taking the pitching loss, allowing three earned runs and six hits while striking out two.
Lummus finished 2-3 at the plate with a pair of runs to lead the Owls hitters.
In the nightcap, Westfield jumped in front 2-0 in the bottom of the first, as Ciampa and Wodecki reached with a pair of singles, and after a Sarah Bingham (Reno, Nev.) groundout, Sarah Hough (Southwick, Mass.) drove in both runners with a single to left center.
Bridgewater scratched together single runs in the second and thirds innings. Janet Jolly (Raynham, Mass./Norton) tripled and later scored on a wild pitch as Scoville worked around trouble in the second, and in the third, Sydney Scheafer (Swarthmore, PA/Ridley) walked, was sacrificed to second, went to third on an error and scored on the back end of a double steal after a collision between the runner at second and clark, who was trying to make the tag play with the ball to the first base side of the bag. Again, Scoville worked out of the jame to strand a runner at third and allow just the one run in the inning.
The 2-2 tie was short-lived as the Owls regained the lead with pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning. Ciampa reached on an error, and came around to score when Wodecki laced a line drive to right field that squirted past the right fielder all the way to the wall for an RBI triple and a 3-2 Owls lead, and Bingham followed with a sac fly to left that was deep enough to score Wodecki from third for a 4-2 Westfield lead.
Bridgewater put at least one runner aboard in each of the next four innings, but Scoville deftly worked around it, getting another double play ball to Clark for a 6-4-3 twin killing in the fifth. After a 2-out double from Schaefer in the top of the seventh, Scoville struck out the Bears' Victoria Becker (Abington, Mass.) looking to end the game and clinch the conference title for the Owls.
Westfield improves to 26-11-1 on the season and matches the school record for wins in a season, set in 2010. Westfield is 12-2 in the MASCAC. The win was also the 50th for Owls coach Joe Hough in his two seasons at the helm of the Owls' program.
Wodecki, Sarah Hough, and Mia Alfonso (Dalton, Mass./Pittsfield) each had two hits in the nightcap for the Owls.
McKayla Cusack (West Haven, Conn./Laurelton Hall)(L, 3-4) went the distance in the circle for the Bears, allowing nine hits and two earned runs while striking out three and walking none. Bridgewater'has a 19-19 record overall and a 6-8 mark in the MASCAC and will await playoff seeding.