Senior Sophia Simeone leaped at the net, drew her arm back in the air and fired a thunderous kill into the middle of the defenders at the Arthur L. Johnson High School court. The Blue Devils rushed onto the floor as the crowd rose to their feet in celebration of Westfield’s 2-1 semifinal victory over Cranford.
Westfield has now advanced to the Union County Finals for the second year in a row, having won the conference championship four times in the last five seasons.
“It is really meaningful to be back here. Every year, we strive to go to the county finals, and it’s not always easy. I knew this would be a challenge with Cranford because it’s our third time playing them, it is always harder on the third time,” head coach Beverly Torok said.
After winning the first points of the game, the Blue Devils fell behind, forcing them to call a timeout down 8-4. They came out of the break and quickly gained momentum, as a kill from Simeone and a pair of kills from junior Liz Bresnahan allowed them to retake the lead. Westfield never looked back, as the dominant play at the net from Bresnahan and senior co-captain Annelise Bonn clinched the first set for the Blue Devils, 25-20.
“It is really special for all of us, especially playing such good competition. We really earned our win and earned our spot on the court,” Bonn said.
The Blue Devils began the second set where they left off in the first, jumping out to a 6-1 lead. Cranford didn’t let up, however, as they came back to retake the lead 8-7. From there, the Cougars exploded, winning 17 of the next 21 points to win the set 25-11 and force a decisive third set. Out of the 23 best-of-three matches Westfield has played this season, this was only the fifth time they have gone to a third set. Three of those matches have come against Cranford.
“I think that we flatlined in the second set and we knew that wasn’t going to win us this game since we were playing a competitive team, so we took a breath and reset going into the new set and just focused on our pace more than the other team,” Simeone said.
A kill from Bonn opened the third set, and the Blue Devils quickly gained control behind kills from Bresnahan, Simeone and sophomore Madelyn Koellhofer, aces from senior Heidi Foster and strong serving from seniors Addison Filipps and Karolina Gawkowska. Westfield led by a match high of 12 points on their way to winning the set 25-14.
“Sophia really had some smack downs tonight and they were beautiful, and so did Annelise. Annelise hit some amazing shots and it is so exciting to watch those,” Torok said.
On Thursday night, the Blue Devils will take on the Union Catholic Vikings for the county championship at Kean University. As the second seed in the county, the Vikings are 19-4 on the season, with 2 of those losses coming against Westfield.
