UMass star Haley Connaughton looks to great things ahead

Junior Haley Connaughton (Westwood, Mass.) scored 24 points in UMass' five games this spring. (Thom Kendall/UMass Athletics)

Haley Connaughton (Westwood, Mass.) entered her junior season at the University of Massachusetts by picking up right where she left off the previous year.

The attacker totaled 24 points in the Minutewomen’s first five contests of this season, and she scored four goals in three of those games. One of those performances came in the season opener, a 15-11 triumph over then-No. 5 Boston College that served as a statement win.

The only thing that could have slowed Connaughton down was the unprecedented; the slow spread of COVID-19, or the coronavirus. On March 13, UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford announced that all school athletics were cancelled for the remainder of the academic year in order to protect their student-athletes.