Midway through the first half, junior Mia Zbranak stepped up to the ball and found senior co-captain Emilie Cadigan from deep, who then drove the ball high over the Union defense and the tip of the goalkeeper’s hand before it glided softly into the back of the net, putting Westfield up 1-0.
The Blue Devils started their Union County tournament on Tuesday following a 10-day break after completing their regular season on Nov. 10 with a win against Old Bridge. Westfield entered the tournament as the number one seed, an honor they have held for the past five seasons.
“Coming into the quarterfinals and Union coming off a very big win, we just wanted to prove to ourselves and prove to the rest of the county that we still deserve to be here,” said Cadigan.
After having a bye for the first three rounds, the Blue Devils took on the ninth seed Union Farmers who began their tournament with a 7-0 win over Linden and a close 1-0 victory over New Providence.
After the first whistle was blown, the Blue Devil intensity was tangible. They created several scoring opportunities within the first 10 minutes, with 3 shots alone generated from Cadigan. They continued to apply that same pressure on the Union defense and soon Cadigan scored the opening goal of the game to give Westfield a 1-0 lead.
The remainder of the first half carried the same level of energy coming from the Westfield lineup, despite the Blue Devils standing still at one goal tallied on the scoreboard. The defense came up with numerous stops and kept the Farmers scoreless for the entirety of the game.
Head coach Alex Schmidt said, “It’s always hard to play after 10 days off but what we’ve been working on is finding the width. After Scotch Plains and Old Bridge, teams that just kind of sat in, it got tight in the midfield. I was really proud of the girls for finding the width and attacking from the width, we did a really good job with that today.”
Senior Ava Jasina echoed a similar sentiment. “It’s clear that a lot of teams have been watching our film and know how we score our goals so I think we did a really good job today with varying our attack and scoring in different ways,” she said.
After going into halftime with the upperhand, Westfield came out of the gate heated in the second half as Gella Hollins found the back of the net less than two minutes in, assisted by senior Nina Rodrigues.
Not long after, Hollins crossed the ball into the box with Jasina right there waiting to bury it into the back of the net to make the score 3-0 for Westfield with 31:40 left to go.
Jasina said, “I think coming out of halftime with Gella scoring that goal so quickly was a real game changer for us. Obviously there haven’t been that many games that we have gone into the half only being up 1-0, so I think when she got that goal we kind of took a breath and found our composure a little bit more in the attacking third.”
For the rest of the second half, Westfield sustained their aggressive attack but were unable to create any more goals, fueled by the performance of the Union goalkeeper who had 14 saves throughout the game.
The Blue Devils extended their shutout total to six on the season, allowing no shots on junior goalkeeper Phoebe Klag for the entire game.
The game ended in an impressive 3-0 victory for the Blue Devils, propelling Westfield to the semifinal round of the county tournament.
The Blue Devils will play 12th seed Kent Place, coming off an upset win against Summit, on Saturday at Arthur L. Johnson High School in the semifinals.
