After winning their first round contests on Wednesday, Worcester State and Fitchburg State are moving on to the semifinals on Friday.

#4 Fitchburg State 1, #5 Salem State 0    Box Score

FITCHBURG, MA: Fitchburg State women's soccer fought hard against Salem State this evening, taking them down 1-0 to move forward to the MASCAC Semifinal Round that will take place on Friday.

THE BASICS:

Score: Fitchburg 1, Salem 0

Records: Fitchburg (4-11-3), Salem (4-11-3

HOW IT HAPPENED:

-  After a back-and-forth scoreless first half, the Falcons would break onto the board in the 72nd minute when Stella Liebler (Plainville, CT) took a shot from the right side of the box that got turned away by the Viking keeper, finding the foot of Delia Fitzgerald (Foxboro, MA), who would finish it for her first goal of the season. 

- The one strike by Fitzgerald would be all the scoring that took place and all the Falcons needed after a stellar performance by the back line of Sophia Moore (Killingly, CT) and Taylor Senecal (Rutland, MA).   

INSIDE THE NUMBERS:

-  Cassandra Pendleton (Ware, MA) completed the shutout of the Vikings by making all 8 saves, getting her to 2-1-2 on the season.

-  Ava Guyer had a solid performance for Salem, making 6 out of 7 saves and dropping her to 4-11-3 on the year.

-  Shots: Salem 22, Fitchburg 15

UP NEXT:

- Fitchburg State women's soccer will advance to the MASCAC Semifinals for the third consecutive year. This time, they will travel to the #1 seed Bridgewater State for a 7:00 PM kickoff.

#3 Worcester State 4  #6 Framingham State 0    Box Score

Worcester, MA- With the opening round of MASCAC Quarterfinal action tonight, the #3 seeded Worcester State Lancers (8-5-3, 4-2-1) welcome to John Coughlin Field the #6 seeded Framingham State Rams (4-14-1, 2-4-1). In their sole meeting this season on October 18th, the Lancers squeezed by the Rams 1-0 off an early first half goal.

Final

Framingham State: 0

Worcester State: 4

How it Happened:

The first half of the MASCAC Quarterfinal saw two teams devoted to taking home the win. Both squads would work to move the ball around the field in the opening half of action before Worcester would first find the netting to open the scoring in tonight's game. After some chaos in front of the net sophomore Ava Lemanski (Clinton, MA) would find a way to put the ball past the Rams keeper junior Madison Magone (Rockaway, NJ) to grab an early 1-0 advantage. Framingham would keep up with their intensity in their bid to find the equalizer but Worcester was not done yet when Lemanski sent a pass to junior Ella Tatarczuk (Bedford, MA) who made a successful shot into the far right of the goal to further their lead 2-0.  The Lancers would have a chance to take a 3-0 lead into the half when a foul in the box would send senior Abby Bond ( Bolton, MA) to the line for a penalty kick. Bond's attempt would carry wide right of the cage though keeping the Rams down by just 2 into halftime. 

With the second half action underway, the Framingham State Rams would look to make a push to score down with a two score deficit. Worcester would come out highly defensive trying to hold onto this lead but it would slow down their offensive drives down the field and limiting the ability to stretch the lead. Framingham attempted to capitalize on the defensive set up but were unable to get behind the backline for a dangerous threat. Worcester would slowly shift back onto attack and this shift would lead to the Lancers 3rd goal of the day, this time off a bouncing scrum off the right post, by first year Ava Chevalier (Brimfield, MA). This score would add additional pressure to the Rams attack as the intensity continued to rise on the field and force Framingham to be more aggressive on their attack. Worcester would use this high shift in attack to sneak behind the smaller defensive pressure to grab goal number four as senior Raelyn Callahan (Pepperell, MA) would snag the ball off the defenses legs and charge toward cage to send the quick shot off the left side of Magone for the fourth and final goal of the match. 

Sophomore Ella Gumienny (Clinton, MA) would end the night with three saves while Magone would record nine saves in the action.

What's Next:

With the win, Worcester State will now head to Westfield State at 1pm for the MASCAC Semifinals. 

Releases courtesy of Fitchburg State and Worcester State Sports Information