Westwood back in final

Westwood players celebrate their win over Framingham in the Division 1 EMass final. Next up, Longmeadow . (PATRICIA McDONNELL/FOR THE GLOBE)

WAYLAND - The last time the Westwood girls' lacrosse team reached the Division 1 state final was in 2005, when this year's seniors were freshmen. Three years later, they have a chance to finish at Westwood as state champions again after the Wolverines held on to oust Framingham, 13-11, yesterday in the EMass final.

Westwood will face Longmeadow, 10-6 winners over Westboro yesterday, in Saturday's state final.

Last year, Framingham knocked off Westwood in the EMass final on the way to an undefeated season and a state title. Now the Wolverines (23-0-1) are hoping to do the same.

"Framingham is undoubtedly a superpower and I don't know how they do it every single year," said Westwood coach Leslie Frank. "I know a lot of their players who play at the college level, and then the next year we don't even remember [the players] from the year before."

Yesterday, the Flyers (22-2-1) started fast, as Melanie Baskind (three goals, one assist) and junior Samantha Zetlin (four goals) helped put the Wolverines in an early 3-0 hole, prompting Frank to call a timeout.

Westwood settled down and when Erin Massimi set up Courtney McLaughlin for a score with 16:32 left in the half, it was knotted at 4-4.

As the first half wound down, Westwood's Alex Frank maneuvered around the Framingham defense from the back of the net to the right side and whipped a shot in for a 7-6 lead at the break.

"This is definitely one of the biggest games of my career. We made it here last year [and] we were beat by a goal last year," said Alex Frank. "When we got here this year, it was an incentive just to come back and win this game. This is a huge game for me and I am so excited to be back in the state championship. It is one of my greatest goals."

Westwood kept the momentum in the second half, building a five-goal lead after Frank (six goals, two assists) fed Kelly Rich for one of her four goals, prompting Framingham to call a timeout.

That's when the Flyers broke loose.

After pressuring at the offensive end for almost a minute, sophomore attacker Moira Barry got her second goal of the game on a short shot with 4:05 left to play, starting a 3-0 run (Zetlin and Tyler Szymanski had the others) that cut Westwood's advantage to 13-11 with 1:32 left.

"Framingham plays a different game than a lot of other teams. They're very aggressive and they're very fast, so pretty much what we were doing is we were just staying back farther then we usually would," said senior defensive captain Joan O'Neill.

Framingham kept up the pressure as the clock wound down, but the Wolverine defense knocked the ball loose and got it to goalkeeper Abbie Brown, who held on and killed time off the clock before passing it to a teammate, ending Framingham's chances.