Springfield, Mass. — Senior Packy Witkowski scored 29 points as fifth-seeded Coast Guard Academy upset top-seeded Springfield College 88-82 in the semifinals of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament Friday night.

The Bears (13-13), who lost a pair of regular-season meetings to the Pride (22-4), the nation's 14th-ranked team in Division III, will play at No. 2 WPI, a 73-58 winner over No. 3 Babson, in Sunday's championship at at 1 p.m. WPI also swept the season series from the Bears.

Coast Guard will be making its first trip to the NEWMAC tournament title game since 2008, the year the Bears reached the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament.

Sophomore Garrett Drummond added 23 points, 16 in the first half, for CGA while Noah Baldez had 19 and Tyler Perez 11.

Springfield's Jake Ross, a national player of the year candidate, had 44 points (30 in the second half) and 13 rebounds for the Pride.

Coast Guard was without senior Justin Kane, who sustained an injury in the quarterfinal win over Emerson on Wednesday night.

The Bears, who shot 51.6% from the floor (33-for-64), led 35-31 at halftime and 67-59 with 7 minutes, 9 seconds remaining following a 3-pointer by Witkowski. Springfield would go on a 6-0 run to pull within two, 67-65, before Witkowski's 3-pointer with 3:16 left extended CGA's lead to 72-67.

Springfield would pull within two again on a Ross trey with 1:49 left, 76-74, but Baldez made six straight free throws as the Bears extended their lead to 82-75.

H.S. wrestling

• Ledyard's Brayden Grim (160 pounds), New London's Jadian Mackenzie (195) and East Lyme/Norwich Tech's Roark Ryan (220) were among seven Eastern Connecticut Conference wrestlers to advance to the semifinals of the CIAC State Open tournament at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven. Semifinal matches will begin at 12:15 p.m. Saturday.

Grim will wrestle Class L champion Zahir McLean-Felix of Brookfield, Mackenzie will take on Class S champion Jamikeal Lytle of Northwestern Regional and Ryan will face Class LL champion DJ Donovan of Danbury.

The other ECC semifinals are Killingly's Dan Charron (126), who will face Danbury's Tyler Johnson; Bacon Academy's Braeden O'Brien (132), who will meet Simsbury's Thomas Finn; Killingly's Ben Richardson (145), who faces Fairfield Warde's Will Ebert; and Lyman Memorial/Windham Tech's Ryan Powers (170), who takes on Barlow's Frankie McNeary.

Danbury has the team lead after the first day with 100 points followed by Fairfield Warde with 80 and Xavier with 71. ECC and Class S champion Killingly is 11th with 31 points.

Boys' basketball

• Top-seeded Old Lyme begins play in the Shoreline Conference tournament by hosting No. 8 Westbrook at 3 p.m. Saturday in the quarterfinals. The Wildcats (19-1) have won 12 straight and went 16-0 in the conference during the regular season. Old Lyme, which reached the tournament final in 2019 before losing to Cromwell, has a pair of decisive wins over Westbrook during the regular season, 68-37 on Dec. 27 and 98-50 on Feb. 4.

Women's track

• Coast Guard's 4x200-meter relay team broke the school record to highlight opening night of the Division III New England Championships at Middlebury. Freshman Michelle Kwafo, senior Anna Beck, freshman Kevilyn Frazier and senior Adora Lawrence finished fourth overall with a record-breaking time of 1:45.54. The Bears will resume competition Saturday.

Men's squash

• Winston Simone, Billy Fleurima, Samuel Piller and Mikey Rodriguez posted wins in straight sets Friday to lift Connecticut College past St. Lawrence 6-3 in the opening match for both schools at the CSA Nationals taking place at Harvard. Conn (9-10) is competing as the No. 4 seed in the Conroy Cup bracket. The Camels will next face Dickinson in the semifinals at 9 a.m. Saturday.