Westfield Eagles — 2025 Season

The freshmen are easy to spot. They're the ones stretching too aggressively and glancing around to see if anyone's watching. The returners are loose, juggling in circles, catching up about winter break. I already know about fifteen of these kids are going to make it, but the other thirty-two deserve a fair shot and I'm going to give them one.

What I told them: "I don't care what you did last year. I don't care what club team you play for. This week, you show me who you are." Some of them believed me. The smart ones did. We ran three-v-three small-sided games all afternoon and I saw two freshmen who might be special. Going to be a long, good week.

The list went up at 3:15 and I didn't even want to look. Aiden went first because he's braver than me or just more impatient, and I saw him pump his fist before I even got to the board. Then I read my name — Jake Moretti, Varsity — and everything went blurry for a second.

I walked straight to my car and called my dad. He picked up on the first ring, which means he was waiting, which means he was probably more nervous than I was. I said "I made it" and he didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then he said "I knew you would, buddy." He definitely didn't know. None of us did.

Three guys from my club team didn't make it and I feel terrible about that. But also — I made varsity as a

I brought a blanket because those metal bleachers are freezing in March, and a thermos of coffee, and my camera with the long lens. David Park was already there — his son Aiden is the goalkeeper — and he'd brought an actual camping chair. "It's going to be a long season," he said. "Might as well be comfortable."

Watching them run drills, you can see the team starting to take shape. The returners are crisp, quick, confident. The new guys are a half-step behind but trying so hard. Jake looked focused in a way I haven't seen before. He's always been talented but this year feels different. There's a seriousness about him.

Coach Rivera runs a tight practice. No standing around. I like that. By

Coach Rivera does this every year — invites the whole team to his house before the season starts. His wife Maria makes enough enchiladas to feed a small army, which is basically what twenty-two teenage soccer players are.

The best part is the seniors have to give speeches. Not like formal speeches, just standing up and saying what this team means to them and what they want the season to be. Tyler got emotional, which made everyone uncomfortable for about two seconds, and then we all started clapping. Aiden's speech was mostly jokes but he snuck in something real at the end about how this team is the reason he gets out of bed for 6 AM conditioning.

Coach went last. He told us about his

Every year I have the captains sit down with me and we write three goals on the whiteboard. Not "win states" — that's a result, not a goal. Real goals. Process goals.

This year Jake and Tyler came up with: 1) Nobody trains alone — if someone's struggling, we help them get better. 2) Win the second half — we're going to be the fittest team in the conference, period. 3) Make the town proud.

That third one caught me off guard. These kids care about Westfield in a way that's hard to explain. Half of them have been playing together since U-8 rec league. Their parents are in the stands every game. The younger kids watch them and dream about being them. When Jake wrote "make the town proud" on

Okay so I've played probably three hundred soccer games in my life if you count club and rec and futsal and everything. But walking out for the first varsity game in a Westfield Eagles jersey? Different animal entirely.

The stands were packed — like actually packed, not "my mom is here" packed. The student section had signs. Someone had a drum. My legs were shaking during warmups and I missed two easy passes and Aiden looked at me and said "Dude, breathe." Which is rich coming from the guy who threw up before his first varsity start last year.

Then the whistle blew and everything got quiet in my head. It's like the noise becomes a wall and you're inside it and all you can hear is the ball

There is a special kind of quiet in a car at 5:45 in the morning when you're driving your son to a soccer game forty minutes away. Marcus is in the passenger seat with his headphones on, doing that thing where he's not quite asleep but not quite awake, and I've got NPR on low and a gas station coffee that cost too much.

I think about my own dad during these drives. He came to every one of my basketball games, and I didn't appreciate it until I became a parent. Now I understand: it's not a sacrifice. It's a privilege. Even the 6 AM ones.

We stopped at a Wawa for breakfast sandwiches and Marcus finally woke up enough to talk. He told me about a play Coach Rivera drew up specifically for him

Halftime. Down 2-0 to Riverside. Their coach is over there smiling. My guys are sitting on the bench looking at the grass like the grass has answers.

I could have yelled. I wanted to yell. Instead I got very quiet, which honestly scares them more. I said: "Raise your hand if you think we're going to lose this game." Nobody raised their hand. "Good. Because we're not. Here's what we're going to do."

Tactical adjustment: we moved Jake into a false nine, pushed Marcus wide, told Liam to step into midfield when we had the ball. It was a formation we'd practiced exactly twice. Sometimes that's all you need.

Jake scored in the 58th minute — a curling shot from the top of the box that he had no

Every away game bus ride is the same argument: who controls the Bluetooth speaker. Jake thinks he's the team DJ because he's captain, but his playlist is like... imagine if your dad discovered SoundCloud in 2019 and never left. We're talking deep house remixes of songs that were already bad.

Aiden wants to play country, which causes an actual mutiny every time. Marcus puts on old school hip-hop which everyone agrees is acceptable but not exciting. Liam somehow has the worst taste of all — he listens to video game soundtracks and genuinely does not understand why people laugh.

Today Tyler grabbed the speaker and put on the High School Musical soundtrack as a joke, except it wasn't a joke

I made the mistake of volunteering to host team dinner. "How hard can it be?" I said to David, who looked at me like I'd just volunteered to swim across the Atlantic.

I made six trays of baked ziti, four bags of garlic bread, two massive salads (which went untouched), and a sheet cake. I thought I'd over-prepared. I was wrong. By 7:30, these boys had eaten every single thing. One of them — I think his name is Tyler — ate an entire tray of ziti by himself and then asked if there was more.

But here's the thing nobody tells you about hosting twenty-two teenage athletes: they are the sweetest, most polite kids when they're in someone's home. Every single one of them said thank you. Jake

Eastside. Where do I even start with Eastside. They've beaten us in the conference final three of the last four years. Half their team plays premier club. Their coach wears a suit to games, which — okay, respect, but also, who does that?

The game was everything you'd want a rivalry game to be. Physical, fast, loud. Their student section was doing coordinated chants that our student section tried to drown out with pure volume. Aiden made a save in the first half that I still don't understand — he somehow got a fingertip on a header from six yards out.

We went up 1-0 on a set piece — Coach's play, right off the training ground. Jake whipped it near post, I got a flick, and it went in off

7-3-2. That's our record at the midpoint. On paper, it's good. In reality, we've been unlucky — two of those losses were by a single goal, and the tie against Eastside could have been a win. But the boys see 7-3-2 and they see three losses and they start to doubt.

So I called a meeting. No film, no tactics. Just talking. I asked each player to name one moment this season where they surprised themselves. One by one, around the room. Marcus talked about his left-footed goal. Aiden talked about that save against Eastside. Jake talked about the halftime speech he gave at Riverside when I was too angry to talk.

By the end, they were nodding. They could see it — the picture of who they are, not

Coach cancelled indoor practice and made us go outside even though it was pouring rain. Like not drizzling — actual sheets of rain. We all thought he was insane.

Twenty minutes in, nobody cared about the rain anymore. The ball was skipping off puddles, the field was basically a slip-and-slide, and everyone was laughing. Liam attempted a slide tackle and just... kept sliding. He went about fifteen feet past the ball and ended up in the long jump pit. We had to stop practice because everyone was laughing too hard.

But here's the wild thing: once we stopped worrying about being perfect, we played the best soccer we've played all year. The passing was sharp, the movement was creative,

I've watched Aiden play goalkeeper since he was eight years old. I've seen him make great saves and I've seen him let in goals that kept him up at night. But tonight I watched him do something I've never seen him do before.

We were tied 1-1 against Northridge with five minutes left. Aiden caught a cross, looked up, and instead of punting it long like he usually does, he rolled a quick pass to Liam at the back. Liam played it to Jake, Jake switched it to Marcus on the wing, and Marcus crossed it in for the winner.

It happened in about eight seconds. But it started with Aiden. He saw the play developing before anyone else did. He made the brave choice instead of the safe one.

After the

The Jefferson Invitational is a two-day tournament about three hours north, which means hotel rooms and team meals and basically forty-eight hours of non-stop hanging out. It is the best weekend of the year and I will accept no arguments.

The hotel room situation was chaos. Four guys per room, which in theory is manageable but in practice means someone is sleeping on the floor and someone else is eating Cheetos in bed at 2 AM. Jake and I roomed with Marcus and Liam, and we stayed up until midnight watching old Westfield soccer highlights on YouTube that Coach Rivera definitely doesn't know are on YouTube.

We won our first two games pretty easily, then lost the semifinal in PKs to a team

State tournament bracket came out Monday. We drew Lincoln, who we haven't played this year. So we spent Tuesday's practice in the film room, which is really just Mr. Patterson's history classroom with a projector.

I showed the boys four of Lincoln's games. Their center back is the real deal — Division I committed, 6'2", reads the game like he's played it for thirty years. Their midfield likes to overload the left side. Their goalkeeper is good but doesn't like crosses.

Jake was taking notes. Actual handwritten notes. I've never seen a player do that before. Marcus kept rewinding one clip where their right back gets beat on the overlap, saying "That's mine, Coach. That's my space." Liam

I need to write this down before I forget any of it, even though I will never forget any of it.

State semifinal against Creekview. They're fast, they're organized, and their coach has been to five state finals. We were even for ninety minutes — 1-1 after regulation, 1-1 after two overtimes. So: penalties.

Coach picked the five shooters. I was third. Jake was first. When Jake walked to the spot, the entire stadium went quiet. He put it top bins, no hesitation. Their guy scored. Then Marcus stepped up and went low left — saved. My stomach dropped. But their second shooter hit the post. We were still alive.

My turn. I walked to the spot and all I could hear was my heartbeat. I picked my

I don't know how to describe what it felt like driving to the state championship and seeing Westfield Eagles flags on every other car on the highway. The diner on Main Street had "GO EAGLES" on the marquee. The elementary school kids made a banner.

We got to the stadium two hours early and the parking lot was already filling up. David, Lisa, and I had saved seats in the front row. By kickoff, our section was overflowing — parents, grandparents, younger siblings, classmates, teachers, people I've never met who just came because Westfield was in the final.

The game was brutal. Eastside — of course it was Eastside — scored first. Our boys equalized before half. Then it was just... war.

I scored the goal that won us the state championship and I have absolutely no memory of it. Like, none. I've watched the video twelve times and I can see myself receiving Jake's pass and finishing near post but I genuinely do not remember doing it. Adrenaline is a wild thing.

What I do remember: the final whistle. Liam tackled me. Aiden sprinted sixty yards to jump on the pile. Coach Rivera was standing on the sideline with his hands on his head, looking up at the sky. The fans rushed the field. My mom was somewhere in there, crying, trying to find me.

I remember holding the trophy. It's heavier than you'd think. We passed it around and everyone held it up and there's a photo somewhere of

I waited until the boys had their moment on the field. The trophy ceremony, the photos, the hugs with their families. I stood back and watched because this was their night, not mine.

But when we got back to the locker room, I asked for their attention. And these twenty-two kids who had been screaming and celebrating for an hour went silent. Just like that. Because that's who they are.

I told them: "In fourteen years of coaching, I have never been prouder of a group of young men than I am of you right now. Not because of the trophy. Because of who you were on the way to it. You showed up for each other every single day. You chose hard over easy. You were kind when you could have been

The athletic department hosts the awards banquet at the Italian place on Route 22, and there is something profoundly funny about watching boys you've seen covered in mud and sweat walk in wearing button-downs and khakis.

Jake won MVP, which surprised no one. Marcus got Most Improved, which made him pretend to be humble for about three seconds before breaking into the biggest grin I've ever seen. Aiden got the Coaches' Award and gave a speech that was 80% comedy and 20% genuine emotion that hit everyone right in the chest.

The seniors each got a framed jersey. When they called Tyler's name and his mom started crying, every parent in the room was done. Mass emotional event. David tried to

Seven seniors. Seven guys who gave this program four years of their lives. Some of them walked in as freshmen who could barely trap a ball. They're walking out as state champions.

I write a personal letter to every senior, every year. I seal them and hand them out at the banquet. I don't read them aloud — those words are between me and them. But I'll share what I told the group.

"Tyler — you taught me that heart beats talent every time. Ryan — your work ethic set the standard for every player who comes after you. Ben — you never started a game and you never once complained, and that makes you the toughest person in this room."

I went through all seven. Each one got a standing ovation.

My mom made one of those Shutterfly books with photos from the whole season and it showed up today and I've been sitting on my bed flipping through it for an hour.

There's a photo from the first day of tryouts — I look terrified. There's one from the team dinner at Karen Moretti's house where everyone is crammed into the living room. There's the rain practice, and you can actually see Liam mid-slide heading toward the long jump pit. There's the Riverside comeback — someone caught the exact moment I hit the volley and my face is pure disbelief.

The championship photos are the ones that get me. There's a shot of the whole team right after the final whistle and everyone's face tells a

We had an alumni scrimmage today — current team vs. graduated players. It was supposed to be a fun, casual thing but of course it turned into a real game because that's what happens when you put competitive people on a field.

Afterward, we all rode the bus back to school one last time. Coach didn't organize it — the bus just kind of happened. Someone called the transportation office and asked and apparently they said yes because state champions get whatever they want.

Jake controlled the speaker and nobody argued. He played the High School Musical soundtrack first, because it's tradition now, and everyone sang. Then he played the songs from every bus ride this season, in order, like a