With only one minute left on the clock, senior quad-captain Colin Coyle cradles his stick as the crowd waits in anticipation for him to fire it at Don Bosco’s goalie. Only one goal down against this powerhouse team, this would be the shot for the Blue Devils to deservingly tie the game. The ball left his stick with the goalie unfortunately stopping the shot at his hip. The ball deflected straight down and was then swiftly recovered, as the audience collectively sighed and understood this was a losing game leading to a final score of 6-7. However, the Blue Devils had so much to be proud of during this game, and this missed shot does not reflect their perseverance, concision and harmony.
“There wasn’t much that didn’t go well today for us. Yesterday, we came up with a game plan, and they executed it. The guys played one hell of a game. I’m proud of them,” said head coach William Wertheimer.
Right off the bat Westfield came out firing. Within minutes, flying with confidence, the Blue Devils were up by two. Facing off against one of the highest nationally ranked teams, Westfield knew the rest of the game would not proceed this easily. Wertheimer said, “I know the score didn’t show it, but that’s one of the top teams of the state. They’re nationally ranked, and we played them within one point. ”
The offense is to thank for their beginning momentum. The team has worked diligently in the locker room on moving the ball well and playing as a unit, which is when they consider their best lacrosse to be played. Senior attackman Garrett Ferguson said, “We were playing more in unison today and really getting the ball around and sharing it. We started to click, so I think moving forward, our offense will start looking a lot better.”
Don Bosco matched Westfield’s fire quickly into the first quarter and the game remained even until the end of the first half. The Blue Devils went into the second half in a 3-5 deficit, despite their tremendous defensive effort. Senior quad-captain Corey Gilford performed a lights-out game making many crucial and crowd-stunning saves against Don Bosco’s Duke, Yale and Loyola front line commits. Gilford said, “The defense played outstanding, and they forced the deep shots for me to save, and made it easier for me.”
As the defense had a hard time transitioning the ball to the attacking zone throughout the first half the Blue Devils relied heavily on other players to step up and force turnovers. Junior Ben Seward had a stellar performance, playing as the pivot point in the defensive side and transitioning crucially many times to offense. Seward said, “I did a pretty good job on the ground balls and on the transition. And then I feel like overall in defense, we’ve had great sliding and rotations which were really important today against their guys.”
Don Bosco dominated the game for most of the second half until senior Luke Angelo’s sixth goal in the fourth quarter, shrinking the score gap from 5-7 to 6-7. This sparked home for the Blue Devils, however the clock worked against them and they weren’t able to convert at the end. Regardless, there were many positive aspects of the game that they will be taking into their state tournament run that starts next week. Wertheimer said, “Starting today we had two hard and equal sharing midfield lines, so going into the tournament just getting more guys on the field, getting more touches and just finishing clean is important. And just, you know, scouting and buying into the game plan.”
Moving forward the Blue Devils will be back in action Thursday, May 22, away at Bernards at 4:30. The regular season is coming to an end for Westfield as their focus begins to shift to the state tournament. With a schedule heavily weighted with these powerhouse private school teams, Wertheimer said, “It’s an advantage because it gets you ready for the state. Going forward these games prepare us to play other teams in the state, who I don’t want to say are easier, but just play a different style of lacrosse.”
