Box Score
NORTH ADAMS - The Westfield State women's soccer team captured the Massachusetts State College Athletics Conference regular season championship by defeating rival MCLA, 2-1, on Saturday, Oct. 31.
The Owls completed the regular season with a 14-1-2 overall record and a 6-0-1 MASCAC mark. MCLA is 13-4 and 5-2. Westfield will host No. 4 seed Bridgewater in the MASCAC tournament semifinals on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 7:00 p.m.
MCLA travels to Worcester State for the other semifinal matchup, also Wednesday at 7:00. Worcester is the No. 2 seed with a 4-0-3 conference record. The MASCAC tournament championship game will be played Saturday, Nov. 7, at the highest remaining seed.
The first half opened with MCLA missing a golden opportunity to jump in front of Westfield just three minutes into the game, Junior forward Jess Tietgens (Stamford, VT) put a great pass forward to senior Harmony McGorman (Orleans, MA). McGorman was one on one with Westfield keeper Jessica Pieciak (Three Rivers, MA) who made a tremendous save just deflecting the ball over the crossbar.
The Owls turned up the pressure after that save and broke through at the 14:47 mark when senior Meg Gearin (Groton, MA) converted a feed from Ali Pease (Ludlow, MA), beating MCLA keeper Jen Wehner (Cooperstown, NY) in the upper left corner for a 1-0 advantage.
Wehner would turn away numerous shots in the next few minutes until the Trailblazers finally broke in transition. In the 24th minute, Danielle Parenteau (Southampton, MA) would thread a beautiful pass past two defenders to a streaking Tietgens, who pounded home her MASCAC best 22nd goal of the season, tying the score at 1-1.
The tie was short lived as Westfield would net the eventual game winner just three minutes later. Junior forward Kate MacLellan (Wilbraham, MA) sent a curling corner kick into the box that Wehner attempted to catch. She fumbled the ball and freshman Colleen Bazinet (Charlton, MA) would clean it up making it 2-1 in favor of the Owls. MCLA had another great chance to tie the game in the 40th minute when Tietgens couldn’t convert a loose ball in the box.
The second half saw few quality scoring chances on both sides. Neither team would add another tally as Westfield would run out the clock to secure the victory.
On the afternoon, Westfield outshot MCLA 27-9. Wehner made 17 stops in net while her counterpart, Pieciak stopped three.