PREVIEW: Owls Women Travel to Bridgewater for Conference Semi on Thursday

WESTFIELD, Mass.    –   Fourth-seeded Westfield State women's basketball hits the road for the remainder of their playoff journey, as they travel to top-seed Bridgewater State for a Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference semifinal game on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025 with a 6:00 p.m. tip off.

HOW TO WATCH:  Live stats at WestfieldStateOwls.com, live video stream at WestfieldStateOwls.com or on the MASCAC.TV app.

WHATS AT STAKE:  A trip to the MASCAC Championship game awaits the winner, who will face the winner of the #2 Framingham State vs. #3 Salem State matchup at the site of the highest remaining seed on Saturday.  The conference champion earns the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.

THE MATCHUP:  Westfield enters the game 16-9 overall, while Bridgewater is 17-6.  The Bears have had the Owls' number as of late, posting a 9-2 record against Westfield since the 2021-22 season, and the bears are unbeaten at home against Westfield, including knocking the Owls from the conference tournament in each of the last three seasons – twice in the conference semis, and in the conference championship game in 2023. Westfield last won in Bridgewater on Jan. 18, 2020 (less than two months before the pandemic) in a 111-108 barn-burner.

The Bears swept both games against the Owls this season, winning 81-68 in Westfield on Jan. 25 and 81-52 in Bridgewater on Feb. 19.  

Westfield defeated Worcester State in the opening round of the tournament on Tuesday, 89-75 in a hard fought game before pulling away in the fourth quarter.

PLAYERS TO WATCH:    Westfield State senior Jordan Grant (Gray, Maine) moved up to fifth on Westfield's all time scoring list on Tuesday. Grant now has 1,478 points in her career, passing Jill Valley '17 (1,474) and Grant will next set her sights on Ellen Carey '92, who's fourth with 1,495.  Grant finished with 20 points, five boards, and three huge blocks in the Owls first round win.  Grant's success vs. the Bears has been mixed, with a 21-point, nine rebound performance in Westfield, but she was limited to seven points and six boards in the matchup in Bridgewater eight days ago.   She averages 17 points and six rebounds  per game.

Owls graduate student guard Olivia Hadla (Westfield, Mass.) is right on Grant's heels in the career scoring race.  She's tallied 1,444 career points – currently seventh all-time at Westfield – and gets 14.4 points and 2.6 steals per game.

Senior forward Maddie Pond (Holyoke, Mass.) gives the Owls a triple threat offensively. She's 12 points shy of 900 for her career as an Owl (ranking 24^th in program history) and has connected at a better than 40 percent clip from behind the arc over the past four games.

While that veteran trio are the Owls headliners, Westfield generally goes 12 deep with a fast-paced style of play.

Bridgewater has one of the league's top players in senior guard Kylie Grassi, averaging 17 points and five rebounds per game.  She was the conference's co-player of the year in 2024.   Like the Owls, the Bears have a deep roster that has scoring balance. Kylie Pichee gets 11.4 ppg, then post players Arielle Cleveland (8.0 ppg, 6.6 rpg) and Jessica D'Amours (7.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg) have the potential to create matchup problems for the Owls.