By Jim Fenton

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Midway through September, the Bridgewater State University volleyball was dealing with a six-game losing streak.

The Bears had won their season opener against Anna Maria, then dropped six in a row over a nine-day span to fall to 1-6.

BSU had reached an important juncture as it attempted to avoid falling deeper into a rut.

The Bears responded by putting together an eight-game winning streak, the longest since 2015, to get on the right track.

And since that 1-6 beginning, BSU has gone 10-3 over the last eight weeks.

The Bears (11-9) head into the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament with optimism after turning things around.

Second-seeded, BSU (6-1 in the MASCAC) will host a semifinal-round match against third-seeded Framingham State (13-15, 4-3) on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Tinsley Center.

The Rams advanced on Tuesday night with a 3-0 victory over the sixth-seeded Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

"If we play the way I think we can play, I'm very confident we'll have a good postseason," said Bears coach Tony daSilveira.

BSU has not been seeded as high as No. 2 since it was in that spot in 2012.

The Bears have not advanced to the title match since losing at Framingham State on Nov. 3, 2012 and last went to the NCAA Division 3 tournament in 2008.

BSU reached double figures in wins for the first time since going 11-15 in 2019 and has not finished above .500 since going 15-11 in 2010.

The 2024 Bears are looking to keep moving forward after winning just four matches a year ago.

"To get a title would be great and to be able to see a championship banner next to a Bethany Votta banner (for getting more than 1,000 career assists) would be great," said daSilveira. "It would be a great sign of how hard they work, how hard they've played all season."

Votta, a graduate student from Cumberland, R.I., became the 10th player in program history to exceed 1,000 career assists earlier this season.

She has 1,089 assists and leads the team with 313 this season in addition to being third in the MASCAC with 4.6 per set.

Sophomore outside hitter Ava Crane (Dartmouth, Mass.), who transferred from South Carolina, leads the team with 266 digs and 51 service aces and is third with 118 kills.

Sophomore Lily Welch (Hanson, Mass.) has a team-best 176 kills and has 211 digs plus 41 blocks and 22 aces, and junior Kim Gowell (Durham, N.H.) has 154 kills and freshman Charlotte Sullivan (Hyannis, Mass.) has 104 kills.

Sullivan also has a team-best 54 blocks and ranks fifth in the MASCAC with a .241 hitting percentage.

Sophomore Xin Ai Robinson (Kaiserslautern, Germany) is second to Votta with 212 assists, while classmate Lilly Misay (New Bedford, Mass.) ranks second on the Bears with 226 digs and 35 aces.

daSilveira, whose team struggled with a rash of injuries a year ago, has had good health throughout this season and a strong team morale.

"I've had a few players tell me that it feels like a family, not a team," said daSilveira.

The Bears have just one senior, Abigail Reardon (Fairhaven, Mass.), and graduate student Votta on a youthful roster.

Reardon, Votta, Welch and Meaghan Coutu (Brookline, N.H.) are the captains, and daSilveira said that Welch, even though she's a sophomore, has provided valuable leadership.

"Lily Welch really took charge," said daSilveira. "That was the biggest factor in leadership (during the losing streak), Lily and some of the sophomores, speaking up.

"They don't want to lose and they understand how hard it is to win. It was about, how can we learn from this, this is what we've got to do to get better. They made sure it didn't go off the rails."

The BSU-Framingham State winner will play in the championship match on Saturday with a berth in the NCAAs on the line.

The Bears defeated the Rams, 3-0, in the MASCAC opener on Oct. 1. BSU will be looking for its first tourney win since a 3-0 quarterfinal-round triumph over Salem State.

Top-seeded Westfield State (14-12, 7-0) will face fifth-seeded Worcester State (9-18, 4-3) in the other semifinal-round match on Thursday at 7 p.m. The Lancers defeated Mass. College of Liberal Arts, 3-0, on Tuesday.