Men's Basketball Outlasts Framingham, 80-77

WESTFIELD, Mass.    – Kenneth Rogers, Jr. (Springfield, Mass.)scored 18 points, grabbed nine rebounds and handed out seven assists to lead Westfield State as the Owls held on for an 80-77 win over Framingham State in the Massachusetts State Collegiate athletic Conference opener for both teams at the Woodward Center on Wednesday evening.

Westfield State improves to 11-3, 1-0 in the MASCAC, while Framingham State is now 6-8, 0-1 in the conference.

Westfield led 74-63 with 4:40 left, after a Lid Moreland layup, but the Rams rallied with a 14-2 run to trim the lead all the way down to two points, 76-74, on an old-fashioned three-point play by Adonis Vashon  (Grand Rapids, Mich.) drive with 31 seconds left.  

Moreland canned a pair of free throws for the Owls to get the lead back to four, 78-74 with 19 second to play, but a foul on the ensuing possession sent JD Okafor (Hyde Park, Mass.) to the line for free throws, where he made the first and missed the second with 7.8 seconds to play, and got his own rebound and laid it in to trim the lead to one, 78-77 with 5.4 seconds left in regulation.

Westfield beat the Rams over the top for a Lid Moreland (Bridgeport, Conn.) layup to boost the lead back to 3, and a desperation heave from the backcourt by the Rams fell well short as time expired.

Moreland and Xavier Lewis (Long Island, NY) added 15 points each for the Owls, with Lewis finishing 5-8 from the floor and 3-5 from long range.

Framingham was led by 21 points each from Vashon and Joshua-Daniel Okafor.  Vashon grabbed 10 rebounds, and Okafor nine.  Joshua Saint-Jean (Lynn, Mass.) finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds, as the Rams out-rebounded the Owls 44-30, and held a 46-40 advantage in points in the paint.

The Rams committed 16 turnovers to the Owls six, with Westfield holding a 20-7 edge in points off turnovers.

Westfield led 43-37 at the half as nine different Owls reached the scoring column, highlighted by eight points from Lewis.  Okafor and Saint Jean each had 10 to lead the Rams in the first half.

Westfield State jumped out to a 15-4 lead in the early going, capped by an Lewis three, and led by as many as 13 in the opening half.

The Owls led by as many as 13 points with 5:06 left in the half, but Framingham narrowed the lead with a 12-1 spurt that was capped by four straight free throws from Okafor that cut the lead to 39-37 with 1:23 left in the half.

Westfield State will be back in action on Saturday, travelling to MCLA for a conference game at 12:00 noon.   Framingham will host Bridgewater State on Saturday.