Courtesy of Westfield State and Worcester State Sports Information

The Worcester State Lancers and MCLA Trailblazers advance to the 2014 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball semifinals after winning their respective quarterfinal match-ups on Tuesday night.

Senior forward John Jones scored a game-high 24 points and a 3-point shooting barrage led by sophomore guard Paul Maurice and senior forward Ramon Viches powered MCLA to an 89-67 victory over Westfield State University in the quarterfinals.

The fifth-seeded Trailblazers advance to the MASCAC semifinals and will play at one-seeded Salem State on Thursday. The two squads split during the regular season with MCLA earning the win at Salem while the Vikings took one from the host Trailblazers last Saturday.

MCLA blistered the nets from beyond the arc in the tournament game, making 12 of 25 3-point attempts. Maurice was 6 for 9 from outside the arc and finished with 22 points and a game-high seven rebounds. Viches made 4 of 6 treys and scored 16 points.

The Trailblazers never trailed as they drilled three threes in the opening six minutes to take a 17-6 lead. MCLA built an 18-point lead, 34-16, when Viches drained a three-ball with 4:14 remaining in the first half.

MCLA led 40-24 at halftime and Westfield closed to with 11 points, 43-32, five minutes into the second half. But the Trailblazers continued their 3-point barrage in the second half (the made six 3-pointers in each half) and began pulling away following two Maurice 3-point baskets.

The Trailblazers took their first 20-point plus lead, 70-49, on a two handed slam dunk by Tryiq Rochester with 7:07 remaining. MCLA’s biggest lead was 27 points, 84-57 with 2:01 remaining.

The Trailblazers shot well from the field (53 percent), outrebounded Westfield, 36-27, and took care of the ball with only 10 turnovers. Ruben Delrosario scored eight points and dished a game-high six assists.

Westfield scored 27 of its points from the foul line on 42 free throw attempts. The Owls shot 39 percent (19 for 49) from the floor and were silent from (2 for 7) from 3-point range.

Junior forward Grant Cooper led the Owls with 16 points and freshman reserve guard Jesus Sanchez scored 11. Senior center Carl Stewart had eight points and eight rebounds.

Earning a trip to the semifinals, freshman Paul Brooks (Arlington, MA) and senior Dane Jobst (Athol, MA) both finished with double-doubles as they helped pace third-seeded Worcester State to a 71-51 win over sixth-seeded Framingham State in the quarterfinal round of the MASCAC tournament.

With the triumph the Lancers (12-13) have now won nine of their last 10 games and they move on to the league tournament semifinals to take on second-seeded Bridgewater State on Thursday at 7:30. The Rams bow out of the six-team playoff with a final record of 8-18.

Brooks paced the Blue and Gold with a game-high 19 points, 13 rebounds and a trio of blocks while Jobst pulled down his 18th double-double in 25 games with 15 points and 11 boards to go along with four assists.

Junior Brendan Rios (Easthampton, MA) finished 6-for-10 from the field with four trifectas for a final line of 16 points for the Lancers.

Freshman Dan Gould (Quincy, MA) chipped in with a team-best 10 points to lead Framingham State offensively. Junior Patrick Cuff (Medway, MA) also gobbled up 16 caroms in the losing effort with eight offensive boards and his second-highest rebounding sum of the campaign.

Classmate George Jordan (Worcester, MA/Marlboro) and freshman Jaquan Harris (Randolph, MA) combined for 15 points for the visitors.

The Lancers jumped out to a 14-4 advantage seven minutes into the contest and led 23-8 with 7:07 remaining in the opening stanza.

Framingham State though used an 11-2 spurt to trail by 25-17 at the 4:18 mark as sophomore Tim McCarthy (Wilmington, MA) and junior Ronnie DeBarros (New Bedford, MA) keyed the run with trifectas.

Worcester State came right back with an 8-0 skein to open up their largest margin in the contest (33-17) with just over 90 ticks on the clock on the back of a three-point play by junior Charles Gunter (Boston, MA/New Mission) and settled for the 35-22 advantage at the intermission.

The Rams trimmed their deficit to eight points just three minutes into the second half, but that was as close as they got the rest of the way. Worcester State was sparked by a strong effort from beyond the arc and hit a 46 percent clip in the stanza (12-for-26) to help maintain the double-digit lead which sealed up the victory.

Worcester State finished shooting 40 percent for the contest (24-for-60) and 39 percent from beyond the arc for the contest (7-for-18). WSU also missed 10 free throws and ended with leads in rebounds (55-45), points in the paint (32-22) and transition points (19-8).