The Westfield girls soccer season officially came to an end on Nov. 5 with a heartbreaking penalty-kick loss against Watchung Hills in the North 2, Group 4 sectional final. The Blue Devils finished with a strong record of 15-0-4 and a 9-0-1 record in conference play. The team ended the season undefeated (penalty-kick defeats don’t count as losses), extending its preexisting unbeaten streak, which spans three seasons, to 44 games.
Coming into the season, star senior goalkeeper and co-captain Sutton Factor said the team’s expectation “was to just play as hard as we did last year. Our expectation every year is to get the team as close as possible, and then the wins will follow.”
The Blue Devils suffered a blow during their first game of the season, losing senior co-captain and Rutgers commit Alyssa Martinez to a season-ending injury. Martinez, last year’s nj.com player of the year, scored 31 goals in her junior year.
Despite losing Martinez, the girls certainly followed their expectations through the opening quarter of the season. The Blue Devils breezed through their first five games of the season, earning clean sheets in four of them and achieving key 1-0 wins against Kearny and West Orange. However, on Sept. 22, Westfield squared off against Scotch Plains-Fanwood for its first of three matchups against the Raiders. The teams fought for 100 minutes, but the game concluded in a 0-0 draw. The streak was still alive.
The Blue Devils dominated their next six games, including a commanding 2-0 victory over SPF. The girls headed into the Union County Tournament with an 11-0-1 record, the No. 1 overall seed and an automatic spot in the quarterfinal round.
Both the county quarterfinal and semifinal matchups resulted in 1-0 Blue Devil victories, setting up the third clash between the Raiders and the Blue Devils. After 100 minutes of play, the game headed to PKs, and senior Hamilton College commit Emma Kelesoglu scored the game-winning penalty to give the girls their second county championship in as many years.
Kelesoglu said her “most memorable moment was scoring the PK to win the county finals against Scotch Plains because it was kind of the first time I got a bit of an athletic spotlight.”
Despite Westfield’s near-perfect 13-0-2 record, the girls earned the No. 3 seed in the sectional tournament. The Blue Devils dominated Franklin in the opening round of the state playoffs in a 3-0 victory and went on to defeat Ridge in a nail-biting 1-0 win in the following round. Senior Ciara Dursee scored the lone goal against Ridge and said, “Leaving [Gary Kehler Stadium] with a win and a goal to move my team to the next round is something I’ll remember forever.”
The ensuing matchup was against second-seeded Hunterdon Central and resulted in a 0-0 tie after 100 minutes of play. It all came down to penalty kicks. Factor held her ground and the Blue Devils clinched a spot in the sectional championship with a 4-2 victory in PKs.
Factor claimed this was her most memorable moment of her senior campaign “because everyone fought so hard in that game and I think we put it all out there.”
With a chance to repeat as sectional champions on the line, Westfield squared off against top-seeded Watchung Hills. Westfield conceded an early goal and trailed for the majority of the game until junior Ella Cadigan knotted the score at 1-1 with six minutes to play in regulation. This forced two 10-minute overtime periods in which neither team scored, setting up PKs again.
Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, history did not repeat itself, and for the first time since 2020, Westfield girls soccer was dethroned, falling to Watchung Hills, 3-2, in PKs. The Blue Devils will be replacing 10 seniors for next season and hope that young talent can spark another county championship.
Senior Naval Academy commit Chiara Cosenza led the team with 8 goals on the season and Kelesoglu and senior Cat Angel were tied with their team-leading 5 assists. The strong defense contributed to Factor’s 14 clean sheets on the season.
