Bulldogs Ride Early Arzubiaga Goal to Beat Chargers

An early goal and a late flurry of saves have Westfield finally seeing the results coach J.M. Olmstead has been telling his team would come after an unlucky start to the season. Another one goal loss for Chantilly leaves the Chargers winless in their last five after starting the year with two wins.

Sergio Arzubiaga scored in the opening minutes on a free kick from 22 yards out that bounced off the hands of Mitchell Lagos and trickled in, and Robert Marsters made sure that was all the offense the Bulldogs needed to pull out a 1-0 victory. Westfield controlled possession for most of the game until the final minutes when Chantilly made a late push.

The rally was nearly successful when Billy Germain was awarded a penalty shot in the 69th minute after Arzubiaga was given a red card after a seemingly innocent defense of lob sent into Westfield’s box. Marsters dove to his left on Germain’s attempt, fully extending to deflect the shot off of his hands and out of bounds. Marsters then made three more impressive saves in the final 10 minutes, and got a little help from his defense on three more shots, to seal the win.

“Based on the way the guy lines up, there was no way he’s going to be able to pull the ball back over,” Marsters said. “I made a decision and went with it, luckily didn’t hesitate, and made the save.”

Marsters laughed when asked if that was the first penalty shot he had faced in a game situation, but admitted that it was the only one he’s seen in his high school career.

“Hopefully I won’t have to [face another one] in the future,” he added.

Chantilly failed to pose a serious threat for much of the first 60 minutes. Twice Germain needed to get past one defender for an open shot, but each time, Eric Munt was there to shut him down.

“I only have to work maybe five minutes out of the 80 minutes, and the defense has to work all 80 minutes, sometimes 90,” Marsters said. “They did a hell of a job tonight.”

Olmstead considered the Bulldogs lucky to escape with the win, and had words with Arzubiaga after the game chastising him for what Olmstead considered selfish play.

“They're high school kids, and unfortunately there’s some immaturity out there,” Olmstead said. “We obviously try and use those as learning lessons moving forward. We all make mistakes but the most important things is that we don’t want to make that a recurring thing.”

The win gives the Bulldogs their first winning streak of the season and evens their record at 3-3-2. It is also the first time Westfield has scored a goal in consecutive games, as the Bulldogs have tallied just six goals in eight contests.

“Coming into the season, we thought we had a solid team, but we had an unfortunate slow start. We’ve stepped in the right direction and thankfully the season’s not won [after just a few games],” Olmstead said. “You keep preaching that we’re a good team, but when you can’t get the results, it only goes so far.”