WORCESTER, Mass. – Top-seeded Worcester State University saw their quest for a fourth Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) championship cut short on Saturday evening as the #3 seed Framingham State won the title with a 3-2 (25-16, 21-25, 22-25, 25-21, 15-7) victory at John P. Brissette Competition Court.
The Lancers see their season, in which they went 7-0 in MASCAC play, end with a record of 11-16. Framingham State (17-15) will earn the automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament and await their destination and opponent.
Senior Natalie Gillis (Ashland, Mass.) had 14 kills and 18 digs and Leelle Tyler (Longmeadow, Mass.) added 11 kills in their final games as a Lancer. Denise Hoxha (Worcester, Mass.), Sarah Ward (Townsend, Mass.), and Brooke Lamothe (Tewksbury, Mass.) also finished their Worcester State careers. Ward had 26 assists to lead the team, Hoxha had eight digs, three assists and a service ace, and Lamothe had four assists and 15 digs.
Framingham graduate student Morgan Failla (Providence, R.I.) was named Tournament MVP after putting up 53 assists in the championship win. Failla had five assists and two kills in the decisive fifth set, in which the Rams scored five straight points to take an 8-4 lead and never looked back.
Brandee Thomas (North Kingstown, R.I.) piled up a game-high 22 kills for the Rams and earned a double-double with 16 digs as well.
Framingham didn't make an attacking error in the first half of the opening set and raced out to a 7-1 and then a 15-6 lead. Worcester cut the deficit to three at 17-14, but the Rams used three kills by Anna Szymanski (Harwinton, Conn.) and a service ace from Emily Flaherty (Milford, N.H.) to jump-start an 8-2 run to finish off the first set.
With the second set tied at 8, Worcester State ran off ten of the next 13 points to take an 18-11 lead. Erin Gaffney (Worcester, Mass.) was in on blocks on back to back points and also had a kill during that run. Framingham had a 6-0 run of their own to get back in the set, but two more kills from Gaffney and one from Gillis closed out the 25-21 win.
The third set was tight until very late. Worcester led 22-19, but a kill by Hailey Sanders helped Framingham pull back to 22-21 before the Lancers put the set away to bring themselves one set from a conference crown.
It was not to be, however, as a kill by Thomas closed out a 25-21 win for the Rams to force the deciding set. Framingham took a 23-18 lead with a 5-0 run late to stave off elimination in the fourth.
Szymanski had nine kills and 14 digs for the Rams, while Sanders added 16 kills and hit .467 for the match.
Both teams hit above .300 on the evening. The Lancers were led by Maeve Cadogan (Wilmington, Mass.), who had five kills and hit .400, while also adding two solo blocks and two block assists. Gaffney was in on six blocks for the Lancers, and Angela Colonis (Waterford, Conn.) had two blocks and 19 assists to go with 11 kills.