By Jim Fenton
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Bridgewater State University women's soccer team had a memorable final day of the regular season on Saturday afternoon.
The Bears clinched their second straight Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference championship with an 8-0 victory over the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
The win was the 96th for BSU coach Yasmina Carvalho, tying her with Andrea Zeigler for the most in program history.
Senior captain Sydney Dewhurst (East Bridgewater, Mass.) tied the school record by scoring four goals, and the Bears had a season-high in goals.
BSU is the No. 1 seed in the MASCAC tournament and will host a semifinal-round game on Friday at 7 p.m. against an opponent to be determined.
It marks the first time BSU has won back-to-back regular-season titles. This is the fourth outright MASCAC championship for the Bears (1995, 2006 and 2023), and they shared the crown in 1993, 2008, 2011 and 2017.
BSU heads into the postseason 10-4-3 and went 6-0-1 in the MASCAC. The Bears went undefeated in the conference two years in a row, going 13-0-1.
It is the third straight season that BSU has reached double figures in wins, the first time that has happened since the early 1990s.
Carvalho, who took over the BSU program in 2014, is 96-70-19. She was a four-year player for Zeigler from 2006-09. Zeigler went 96-81-20 in a coaching career that ended in 2009.
The Bears scored four goals in each half to finish with the win over MCLA (3-13, 1-6 MASCAC).
BSU took a 1-0 lead 11:48 into the game when graduate student Emily McCormack (East Bridgewater, Mass.) scored her sixth goal of the season.
Less than three minutes later, Dewhurst scored her first goal of the day with sophomore Nina DiRusso (Braintree, Mass.) assisting at 14:36.
Dewhurst made it 3-0 at 17:26, scoring from McCormack.
The Bears added the final goal of the half at 24:53 when junior Skylar Conrad (Walpole, Mass.) scored her third goal.
BSU had a 12-1 edge in shots on goal in the half and a 29-2 advantage in shots.
Less than five minutes into the second half, McCormack scored from junior Jenna Sweeney (Wilmington, Mass.) at 49:45.
Dewhurst scored twice in less than six minutes to make it 7-0.
She was assisted on both goals by junior Lauren Sellmayer (Easton, Mass.), her first of the half at 51:04 and the second at 57:01.
The Bears capped the scoring at 64:39 when freshman Anna Rice (Weymouth, Mass.) netted her first collegiate goal from classmate Sarah Duran (Hull, Mass.) at 64:39. The assist marked Duran's first collegiate point.
BSU finished with 29 shots on goal and 60 shots overall.
Junior goalkeeper Logan Levesque (Bristol, R.I.) made three saves to record her fifth shutout.
Freshman Destiny Alexandra-Rivas (Leicester, Mass.) stopped seven shots in the first 45 minutes for the
Trailblazers while freshman Mallory Amirian (Haverhill, Mass.) had 13 saves in the second half.
Dewhurst now leads BSU with 11 goals and 32 points. The last Bears player to record four goals in a game was Michelle Rhodes in 2003. Buffy Comeau was the first Bear to score four goals in a game, accomplishing the feat in 1988. BSU Hall of Famers Kathy Conley (1990) and Kimberly Rhodes (2002) also potted four goals in a game.
Dewhurst now has 67 points (24G, 19A) in her career as she moved into seventh place on the Bears' all-time scoring list. She surpassed current assistant coach Michelle Belcher (60 pts, 2021-22), Michelle Rhodes (60 pts, 2001-04), Emma Sanders (63 pts, 2016-19) and Kara Kennedy (65 pts, 1987-89) on the list.
Levesque moved into third place on the Bears' all-time goaltending wins list with her 28th career victory as she broke a tie with Maura Cacciatore (2000-03). Levesque also tied Cacciatore for sixth place all-time in game played between the pipes.