Kicking off another impressive week for the Judges, the women’s soccer team pushed forward and defeated Westfield State University on Wednesday. This game, hosted by Westfield State at Alumni Field, improved the Judges’ record to 11–2 for the season, according to D3Soccer.com. As of Oct. 14, the Judges have a conference standing  of 3–1–0, and in addition, as of Oct. 16th the Judges were ranked number 15—tied with Hanover College—by NCAA Women’s DIII.

Westfield State 1, Judges 3

The game started off with Sierra Dana ’20 as the goalie for the Judges. One minute into the game, the Westfield State Owls won a corner kick and attempted to score a goal; however, Dana saved it. Four minutes into the game, Julia Matson ’19 kicked the ball across to Sasha Sunday ’19, who then scored the first goal. This was Sunday’s third goal of the season and 16th in her career. Just eight minutes later, Lauren Mastrandrea ’22 launched a shot past the diving reach of the Owls goalkeeper. The goal came off of yet another assist from Matson. This shot was Mastrandrea’s first of her career and the team’s 15th different player to score a goal this season. 

Later in the first half, the Owls halved the gap between them and the Judges. Madison Dufries ’22 of Westfield State had the ball near the box in the Judges' half of the field. She sent an arcing chip pass to teammate Ashley Levya, who would slam it home on her first touch. 

In the 37th minute of play, Katie Hayes ’20 passed the ball to Emma Spector ’20, who brought the Judges to 3–1. This goal was Hayes’ sixth of the season and ninth of her career. 

In the second half of the game, neither team scored, but it was still eventful. In the first 20 minutes of the half, the Judges would outshoot the Owls 9-0, though no goal would come of it. In fact, throughout the whole game, the Judges outshot the Owls 21–6. For the next several minutes, the teams would trade scoring chances, charging up and down the field only to have their shots run off target or saved by the opposing team’s goalkeeper. This eventually meant victory for Brandeis.

Sierra Dana ’20 was the Judges' goalkeeper in the first half and made three saves. Victoria Richardson ’20 took over for Dana in the second half and made one save during her time in goal. The second half of the game involved many substitutions on both sides. The game ended with a corner kick by Mastrandrea. Throughout the game, the Judges had four fouls, while the Owls had five. The game lasted a total of one hour and 25 minutes. 

So far, the Judges have 29 goals in the season and an average of 2.23 goals-per-game. The team also has an average of 21.5 shots per game resulting in a shot percent of 10.4 The team has won 11 of the 13 games played so far, two of which were won in overtime. The team’s longest streak lasted eight games, starting on Sept. 1, against Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and ending with the Judges’ defeat by Lesley College on Oct. 2.

This coming week, the Judges will travel to Simmons College on Oct. 23 for the last non-conference game of the season. This will be followed by a game at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday Oct. 8, followed by the University of Chicago on Sunday Oct. 28 and New York University on Saturday Nov. 2.

This last stretch of the schedule is critically important for the Judges. Despite their impressive record, they currently stand in fourth place in the UAA. The teams ahead of them are WashU, UChicago and NYU — the team's only remaining UAA opponents.