Springfield, Mass. – November 7, 2025 – The Springfield College women's basketball team opened its 2025-26 season with a 67-55 setback at Western New England University this evening. 

Western New England is now 1-0 on the season, while Springfield opens its season at 0-1.This is the first time in the series, dating back to 1996, that Western New England has won back-to-back games over Springfield as the Golden Bears defeated the Pride 70-63 a season ago.

Amanda Leary (Westbury, N.Y.) guided Springfield with 14 points and nine rebounds to go along with a steal and a block, while Carrie Hess (Shrewsbury, Mass.) added ten points, five boards and two assists. Perry Blasetti led Western New England with a game-high 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting from the floor and also added six boards, four steals, two assists and a block. Sophie Hedge added 12 points and four boards for the hosts tonight.

A jumper by Hess and layup by Claire Finney (Haverhill, Mass.) gave Springfield an early 4-0 lead before a trey from the corner by Stefany Padula (Franklin, Mass.) made it an eventual 11-2 lead for the Pride midway through the opening quarter. Less than a minute later, Finney buried a three of her own pushing Springfield to its largest lead of the frame – nine – at 14-5 before Western New England ended the first by scoring the final five points as the score stood at 14-10 through ten minutes of play.

Finney opened the scoring with a jumper just over a minute into the second, but over the final 7:49 of the quarter, Western New England outscored Springfield 16-6. The hosts shot 7-for-11 from the floor and knocked down a shot from behind the arc over the stretch that was led by Devlyn McDonald, with five points. McDonald drove in for a layup tying the score at 22 before a pair of layups from Katie Regan and Blasetti made it 26-22 in favor of Western New England at the break. Western New England held Springfield to just 3-for-13 from the floor (23.1-percent) in the second.

Springfield came out of halftime and used a layup from Madison Lopez (Bronx, N.Y.) to cut its deficit to just two at 26-24. The Pride held the Golden Bears' advantage to single digits, but a Blasetti trey with 4:17 left in the stanza made it 43-32 and went on to outscore Springfield 10-2 including the three over those final minutes of the quarter. Ultimately, Western New England outscored Springfield 24-12 in the third and led by a 16-point margin, 50-34, after 30 minutes.

Springfield was able to pull as close as 14 following a jumper from Izzy Pazzaglia (Salem, Conn.) early in the fourth, but Western New England was able to maintain that margin down the stretch en route to the 67-55 final.

As a team, Western New England shot 44.6-percent from the floor (25-for056), 44.4-percent from behind the arc (8-for-18) and 75.0-percent (9-for-12) from the free throw line. Springfield shot 35.8-percent from the floor (19-for-53), 20.0-percent from behind the arc (3-for-15) and 87.5-percent from the charity stripe (14-for-16). Springfield also held a 40-28 margin on the glass, but Western New England tallied 18 points off of 15 Springfield turnovers.

Springfield will welcome Endicott College to Blake Arena for its home opener on Wednesday at 7:00 pm.

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