#4 Bridgewater Upsets Top-Seeded Owls in Semis, 14-13

WESTFIELD, Mass.  –Bridgewater State's Savannah Herrington netted the final two goals of the game to rally fourth-seeded Bridgewater to a 14-13 upset of top-seed Westfield State in the MASCAC Women's Lacrosse semifinals at Alumni Field on Thursday evening.

Bridgewater's Katherine Tracy (Marion, Mass.) fed Savannah Herrington (Kinnelon, N.J.) cutting to the net, who cut across the goal mouth and tallied with a right handed hook shot to give the Bears the lead for good at 14-13 with 2:17 left in the game.

Herrington had tied the game at 13-all a minute earlier, rolling the crease from behind, then spinning back to her left to beat her defender and tally the game tying goal.

Westfield had gotten back to back goals from Natalie DeMaio (Westwood, Mass.) and Emma Cretella (Cheshire, Conn.) to go up 13-11 with 5:20 left in the game.

Bridgewater's Nina Liquori  (Agawam, Mass.) scored her game-high sixth goal of the game to start the Bears late comeback with 3:49 left in the game.

Herrington finished with three goals, and Kate O'Brien (Pembroke, Mass.) added two and one assist for the Bears.  Bridgewater goalkeeper Olivia Kerrigan (Braintree, Mass.) made 12 saves to thwart the Owls.

Westfield State got a chance to tie late as DeMaio circled the cage looking for an opportunity, but her shot sailed wide with 19 seconds left in regulation and the Bears regained possession and after a timeout, were able to run out the clock.

Westfield was led by five goals from DeMaio, while Cretella, Nicole Rinkus (Pembroke, Mass.) and Cassidy Connolly (Woburn, Mass.) scored two apiece.  Owls netminder Kara Banagan (Niskayuna, N.Y.) made seven saves.

After 30 minutes, little was settled as Westfield state took a 6-5 lead into the half.  

The fired-up Bears got out of the gate fast, with Liquori netting the first two goals of the game.  Westfield answered with markers from Connolly and Rinkus  to tie the game, and from there neither team could gain more than a goal's advantage.  The Bears had a vocal bench, up and loudly cheering every goal and draw in the opening half.  

Kerrigan stopped six shots in the opening frame , while Westfield's Banagan may have had the play of the half, diving to make a save and cradling the ball throughout as she tumbled over and came up ready to clear the ball.  

Bridgewater threatened to pull away midway through the third period with three straight goals, taking a 10-7 lead as O'Brien scored back to back goals, then after an Owls' time out, the Bears won the draw and went right to goal, scoring 13 seconds later as Herrington found the back of the net as she spun at the top of the goal crease for the Bears' biggest lead of the game.

Westfield State answered with three straight of their own, with Cassidy Harvey (Niskayuna, N.Y.) rolling all the way across the goal mouth and ripped a high shot to the right upper 90 to trim the lead back to 10-8, then Megan Bailey (Quincy, Mass.) picked the pocket at of a Bears' player at midfield and was 1-on-1 to the Bridgewater goal before a hard cross check knocked Bailey to the ground and drew a yellow card on the Bears, and on the man-up the Owls got an emphatic goal from DeMaio with 2:04 left in the third to trim lead back to 10-9.   Cretella's free position goal with 7.4 seconds left in third tied the game at 10-10.

Bridgewater improves to 10-8 overall on the season, and will go to #2 Framingham (a 17-11 winner over #3 Worcester State tonight) for the title game at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Westfield, which entered the game ranked sixth in NCAA's region 2, sees their season come to an end with a 12-6 overall record and had a nine-game win streak snapped with the loss.