Box Score SPRINGFIELD, Mass.--The Western New England women's volleyball team fell in a nail biter to Salve Regina in the Commonwealth Coast Conference semifinals by set scores 25-18, 23-25, 18-25, 26-24, 17-15 at the Alumni Healthful Living Center field house on Thursday night. With the loss, the No. 2 seed Golden Bears are 19-12 and are out of the CCC Tournament. Salve Regina, which is seeded third, moves on to the finals against top-seeded Roger Williams--a 3-2 winner over Endicott in tonight's other semifinal--with a record of 20-9.

Senior Kasey Cameron led the Golden Bears with a match-high 14 kills and added 12 digs as well. Sophomore Jessica Sincero had a match-high 44 assists and contributed nine digs as well. Grace Kucharski led all players with 28 digs to push her career total to 2,084 and move past Carolyn Holt of Smith College (2,076, 1994-97) and Jamie Wong from Middlebury College (2,074, 2002-05) into ninth place in New England NCAA Division III history. Kucharski also had three service aces along the way. Senior Carolyn Hajdusek recorded 13 kills and .273 hitting.

Jennifer Duggan led the Seahawks with 13 kills and she also had 19 digs. Katelyn Beauregard added 11 kills and Taylor Violet dished 40 assists, had 10 digs and three block assists.

Western New England started out slow losing the first set 25-18. The visitors hit .290 while holding WNE to only a .056 attack percentage.

During the second set, Cameron had a thunderous kill with the assist coming from Sincero allowing the Golden Bears to take an 8-4 lead early in the set. The Seahawks got to within two points but couldn't catch the Golden Bears who evened the match at 1-set apiece.

Kucharski had a great dig to keep the play alive that led to a Kelsey Armstrong kill (13 kills, .364) and a 15-14 lead in the third set. The Golden Bears went on a 9-2 run to finish the set, 25-18, and go up 2-1.

Western New England started the fourth set strong by going on a 9-1 run, including six consecutive points on Cameron's serve while taking advantage of five SRU errors. The Seahawks would eventually crawl back into the set, taking an 18-17 lead on an Erin McGloin service ace. Violet had a kill to stretch the lead to 23-21 before the Golden Bears scored three unanswered points on kills by junior Olivia Lathrop and Cameron sandwiched around a McGloin hitting error. Facing match point, the Seahawks scored the last three points on kills by Kat Mendes and McGloin as well as a WNE error to force a decisive fifth frame.

The Golden Bears came out strong again in the fifth set by going on a 4-0 run making the score 5-2. The Golden Bears were down 14-12, but were able to save two match points on kills from Lathrop and Cameron and eventually taking a 15-14 lead on another Cameron termination. The Seahawks, however, tallied the last three points on a Mendes kill bookended by a pair of WNE attack errors to take the match.

The Golden Bears are hopeful of an Eastern College Athletic Conference bid as they are the two-time defending champions in the New England region.