Women’s Lacrosse Opens 2025 Regular Season Tomorrow at #18 MIT

WESTFIELD, Mass. – After back-to-back MASCAC championships in 2023 and 2024, the Westfield State Women's lacrosse team has high hopes yet again in 2025. The Owls are ranked number one in this year's 2025 MASCAC preseason poll, favoring them to win a third straight championship.

The team finished 12-8 overall in 2024, and 5-1 within their conference, making a deep run in the playoffs. The Owls defeated Worcester State 22-10 at home in the conference semifinals and then traveled to top-seeded Framingham State for the MASCAC championship game, putting together a defensive masterpiece in an 11-6 victory. The Owls earned an automatic qualifying bid into the NCAA Tournament, falling to Cortland in a tightly contested 13-9 contest in Medford, Mass.

This season, the Owls return key point producers with three of the top four goal scorers from last season back for the 2025 year. Natalie DeMaio (Westwood, MA.) put up an impressive 40 goals and 44 points in her 20 games played. Also returning this season is attacker Kylie Buchanan (Westfield, MA.) who despite missing 5 games, still managed to score 37 goals. Midfielder Mykenzie Black (Hopedale, MA.) put up 26 goals and six assists in 2024. Black also gathered 36 ground balls and 67 draw controls, placing her second on the team in both stats.

The team also brings back a pair of talented goalkeepers in Kara Banagan (Niskayuna, N.Y.) and Sydney Smith (Dalton, MA.) who hope to lock it down on the defensive side. Banagan posted a 51 save percentage in 2024 including 14 saves in the tournament loss to Cortland. Smith held a 12.22 goals against average, with 86 saves in her 15 games played.

Owls head coach Jeff Pechulis noted the importance of having two reliable and connected goaltenders stating at the end of last year, "In some of the games that Kara played in, the save percentage would blow your socks off alone, but sometimes it's just the individual saves that she makes that are just astounding." "[Kara] is in a great position because she has Sydney Smith right behind her. There is not as much pressure on her, and she can focus specifically on the next shot."

Other key players returning to the Owls in 2025 include attacker Emma Prattson (Tolland, CT)  and defensive leaders Paige Jelliffe (Monroe, CT) and Olivia Hadla (Westfield, MA.) Prattson ranks third all-time in career assists as a member of Westfield State with 82 career assists, and will be looking to climb the ranks this season. Jelliffe and Hadla were MASCAC all conference defenders in 2024 and will need to hold down the back line for the Owls.

Pechulis boasts an impressive 129-61 record in his 11 seasons as head coach for the Owls, which look to extend an impressive run atop the league as the team searches for a seventh MASCAC title in the last eight seasons. Remarkably, the Owls women's lacrosse program has yet to have a losing season in program history and have finished with a record over .500 for ten consecutive seasons.

The Owls begin the 2025 campaign tomorrow, March 1 with a tough opponent in 18^th ranked MIT at 12:00 P.M. from Jack Berry Field in Cambridge, Mass.

Written by Declan Murphy – WSU Sports Information Intern