WESTFIELD, Mass. – Senior Cassidy Harvey (Niskayuna, N.Y.) scored six goals to led the way for top-seeded Westfield State as the Owls posted a 21-15 win over #3 Framingham State in the championship game of the 2023 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference women's lacrosse tournament at Alumni Field on Saturday afternoon.
Westfield State is now 14-5 overall this season, and won their 11th straight game, the second longest streak in program history. Framingham State's season comes to an end at 12-8.
With the win, Westfield State earns the MASCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament.
Westfield State senior captain Cassidy Connolly (Woburn, Mass.) was named the tournament MVP. She finished with two goals and an assist in the title game.
It was the highest scoring game in championship history, both in terms of combined score, and the Owls 21 goals were the most ever in the league's title game.
Westfield took the lead for good at 4-3 on an extra attacker goal from Nataile DeMaio (Westwood, Mass.) with 5:09 left in the game, but the Rams never let the Owls get more than arms' length away until the fourth quarter.
Nicole Rinkus (Pembroke, Mass.) and Harvey netted the last two goals of the third quarter to stake the Owls to an 18-12 lead. Westfield tallied the first three goals of the fourth quarter to help salt the game away, with Harvey, Emma Cretella (Cheshire, Conn.), and Kiely Hafensteiner (Niskayuna, N.Y.) capping the scoring for the Owls.
Hannah Guerin (Cumberland, R.I) tallied three late goals for the Rams for the final margin.
Westfield was led by six goals from Harvey, with DeMaio adding five goals and an assist. Cretella finished with four goals and two assists.
Kara Banagan (Niskayuna, N.Y.) made 11 saves for the Owls.
Framingham was led by six goals from Guerin, and Rachel Erickson (Dunstable, Mass.) added five goals and two assists. Goalkeeper Isabella DiMare (Wakefield, Mass.) made 11 saves for the Rams.
The NCAA will announce the field for the 2023 Division III tournament at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, May 8, on an NCAA.com live stream (note updated time and date), where the Owls will learn their opponent and destination in the tournament.
Westfield earned its fifth MASCAC title. The Owls previously won in 2017-19, and 2021.
The two teams were meeting in the MASCAC championship game for the fourth time since 2018. Westfield won at home in 2018 (17-10), and on the road at Framingham in 2019 (13-12) and 2021 (14-13).
Today, Westfield got on the board first when DeMaio picked up a loose ball in the center of the fan and spiked a shot past DiMare for a 1-0 lead with 13:11 left in the first quarter.
Connolly scored on a feed from Hafensteiner to give the Owls an early 2-0 lead.
Molly Lanier's (Tyngsboro, Mass.) free position goal at 9:46 got Framingham on the board. She added a nifty multiple shot-fake goal less than a minute later to tie the game at 2-2. Erickson's underhand flick gave the Rams their first lead of the match at 3-2, but the Owls equalized with an extra-attacked goal on the next possession when Cretella fed DeMaio from the top of the fan and DeMaio slipped in a low shot.
Westfield led 7-5 at the end of the first quarter. Framingham won the draw with six seconds left and worked the ball up field with one long pass, but the Owls' Banagan made a sprawling save diving to her right to preserve the 2-goal lead.
Westfield went up 8-5 on the first possession of the second quarter as Megan Bailey (Quincy, Mass.) weaved through traffic in the fan and buried a high shot with 14:12 left in the period.
The Owls got back-to-back goals from Harvey early in the quarter to go up 11-6, and the two teams traded goals from there before Westfield led 13-8 at the half.
Framingham drew first blood in the second half with Guerin tallying a free position goal in the first minute.
Harvey scored one of the game's most memorable goals to help the Owls keep momentum. Harvey stole the ball from behind on a restart, then motored 70 yards to score in transition as she was being fouled to give the Owls a 15-10 lead with 9:51 left in the third.
Framingham scored a transition goal of their own when Leah Green tallied off a led pass from Hailey Baker with 6:03 left in the third quarter to cut the Owls lead back to four at 16-12 and forced a timeout from the Westfield bench.