As the clock ticked down with five minutes remaining, Blue Devils freshman Gillian Vega took a feed from co-captain Emilie Cadigan, split the Scotch Plains-Fanwood defenders and placed a soft touch into the upper right-hand corner of the net. Vega’s goal, the second of her freshman season, tied the game and was the only time the Blue Devils found the back of the net in their 1-1 tie with SPF.
Westfield’s now 10-0-2 on the season. With the conference schedule over, Westfield and SPF will share the regular season Union County Conference Watchung Championship, with both teams at 4-0-1. This is the sixth year in a row that the Blue Devils have won or tied for the regular season title.
The Blue Devils started off slow in the opening half, with SPF taking control of the game. Aside from a pair of shots, Westfield was on the defense. With 12:17 left, Sophia Sedransk scored her first goal of the year, unassisted, to give SPF a 1-0 lead that they took into half.
“I feel like we learned from our mistakes in the first half and we held each other accountable,” Vega said. “We used what we didn’t do in the first half into that in the second half and we all realized how much we wanted to win the game and we just knew that if we were gonna have a chance at winning, then we needed to put up the best fight we could.”
As the sun set for the start of the second half, the Blue Devils came out on fire, using their speed to get to the outside and feeding off the energy from the crowd. Within minutes, senior Ava Jasina hit a crossbar and a Cadigan shot was stopped by Raiders goalie Kendall Kelly, who made 11 saves throughout the night. The Blue Devils continued to apply the pressure, leading to Vega’s tying goal with 4:50 remaining that sent the game to overtime.
Vega, one of the two freshman on the varsity roster, now has two goals this season. “Its been a rough road. I love it,” she said. “I’ve been trying to do as much for the team as I could, whether it was scoring, assisting, playing well defensively, moving the ball, just doing the best I can for the team, and that’s what it led to today.”
Head coach Alex Schmidt added that “patience” was key to their comeback. “The plan was maybe to attack down the middle and it just wasn’t working so we kind of went to the width,” he said.
“I would say first we absorbed the pressure and we kind of just let them play how they wanted to play. And then we kind of responded in the second half, which, I think, was the difference maker for us,” said Jasina.
Neither team scored in the two overtimes and played more conservatively. This was the second time the Blue Devils have played beyond 80 minutes this season and ended both games in a tie. The ties came against SPF and Rutgers Prep, where both opponents came in without a loss.
“Going into big games like this, like Rutgers Prep, like SPF, like Chatham, you know you hope to play your best soccer,” Schmidt said.
Despite these ties against impressive teams, the Blue Devils aren’t satisfied with the results.
“We know we’re the better team in both situations, and I think that we just have to capitalize on our opportunities a little better and move them,” Jasina said.
“The tough thing is we don’t have a lot of days to recover and our bench was shorter than it usually is today, so girls who maybe necessarily didn’t play tonight are gonna have to step up on Saturday because they’re a good squad also,” Schmidt noted.
The Blue Devils will return home and host Old Bridge on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The girls will look to take advantage of their home field and continue to deliver a strong performance as they conclude their last game of the regular season.
