Curtis Totals Career-High 13 Points as Beavers Breeze Past Owls into Second Round

WATERVILLE, Maine—Graduate student Emily Curtis (Walpole, Mass.) finished with career highs of eight goals, five assists and 13 points to help Babson College cruise to a 23-8 win over Westfield State University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday afternoon at Alfond Field.

With its sixth consecutive win, Babson improves to 13-7 overall and advances to Sunday's second round where it will face 12th-ranked Colby at 1 p.m. Westfield State closes its season at 14-6.

Senior Claudia Dodge (Pelham, N.Y.) scored four times, classmate Erin Jayne (Merrimac, Mass.) had three goals and sophomore Jessica Evans (Southbury, Conn.) contributed two goals and two assists for the Beavers. Fellow sophomores Clare Connolly (Hanover, Mass.) and Kathryn Blake (Medfield, Mass.) both scored twice and Connolly led all players with 14 draw controls in the win. Classmate Kathleen Murphy (Scarborough, Mass.) made six saves in the victory.

Senior Cassidy Harvey (Niskayuna, N.Y.) and classmate Emma Cretella (Cheshire, Conn.) both scored three times to lead the Owls, who got a combined seven saves from junior starter Kara Banagan (Niskayuna, N.Y.) and sophomore Sydney Smith (Dalton, Mass.).

Westfield State cut an early 3-0 deficit to one thanks to consecutive goals by Cretella just 16 seconds apart before the Green and White seized command of the game with a 10-goal run over the next 9:52. Evans made it 4-2 at the 6:18 mark and then set up Connolly's first tally at 4:52 before Curtis closed the first quarter with four of the next five goals to give the Beavers a 10-2 advantage.

Jayne scored twice in the span of 20 seconds to open the second and Dodge notched her third goal of the game to push the margin to 13-2 with 11:26 to go before halftime. Harvey cut the Westfield State deficit to 14-4 at the 7:58 mark but Dodge converted a free-position chance and Curtis scored twice more over the final 2:30 to give Babson a 17-5 lead at the break.

Curtis set up goals by Blake and first-year Lilly Bedard (Jupiter, Fla.) over the first five minutes of the third and followed a tally by first-year Tatum Sands (East Dorset, Vt.) with her last two markers of the afternoon to give the Beavers their largest lead at 23-6 with just over 10 minutes to play.

The Green and White finished the day with a 23-10 edge in draw controls and converted 5-of-7 free position chances while committing just nine turnovers.

GAME NOTES
• Saturday's matchup was the first all-time between Babson and Westfield State.
• Curtis, who set Babson NCAA Tournament records with her eight goals, five assists and 13 points, also became just the third player in single-season history to surpass 100 points matching Lexi Lenaghan's '19 total of 102 in 2018 for second on the list.
• The Beavers' 23 goals and margin of victory (15) are their highest totals in program history in the NCAA Tournament.
• Evans has now registered five straight multi-goal games and Connolly has scored at least once in six consecutive outings.
• Babson is 13-0 this season and has lost just once in its last 26 games when scoring at least 12 goals.