WA Girls’ Varsity Field Hockey earned their first win of the season in a competitive 1-0 match against Leominster High School on Thursday, Sep. 4. This victory followed a tough 7-0 loss against Nashoba Regional High School, making the Ghosts’ season record 1-1.
For a majority of the first quarter, the game went goalless, with both teams opening up opportunities to score, but failing to carry through.
Even so, WA’s defense, led by an organized back line and strong midfield support, remained intact and disciplined. Juniors Madison Goff-Chervin, Maren Chungu, and Elena Merlino held off several of Leominster’s pushes and attacks.
A standout moment occurred when Leominster earned a corner, which gave the Ghosts an opportunity to invade. After a quick series of passes, senior captain Lauren Flaherty scored, which concluded the first quarter and resulted in the winning point for Westford.
Offensively, the Ghosts focused on maintaining possession and passing accurately which, according to senior captain Lia Arevalo, were a couple of the team’s main goals for this season.
“Our goals are to have quick and accurate passes and to really work on communicating with my teammates and previewing the field to see where our best course of action is,” Arevalo said.
Throughout the second half, Westford’s offensive strategy relied on aggressiveness and maintaining good spacing between each teammate to thin out the opposing team’s defense. This way, the Ghosts could have more openings for goals. Additionally, their strategy helped keep control of the game and limit counter attacks from the opposition. In total, the Ghosts had possession of the ball for most of the game, which was a big step up from the previous night’s match.
“We had a rough game against Nashoba last night. Not great energy, not a great game […] but we came back,” junior Maddie McWade said. “Coming into this game, we definitely carried our energy from our last game. But we went out there tonight had fun, and stayed energized and focused.”
The win is a promising sign for Westford Academy because of the new additions to the team which include previous junior varsity players and freshmen. Despite the changes from the previous season’s lineup, this game consisted of unity and team chemistry, indicating a bright future for the new varsity players.
“Going into the season with a lot of new people and doing things a lot differently this year, I was interested to see how things would work out,” Chungu said. “But I’m really optimistic about how things are going, and I’m happy about our first win today. We really proved how hard we are working and things are looking up. I’m really proud of the team.”
The Ghosts will proceed to an away game where they will face Chelmsford High School on Monday, Sep. 8 at 5:30 p.m.
