Athlete of the Week: Katie Westfall '04: Westfall Delivers Best Ball

Harvard sophomore midfielder Katie Westfall is the kind of a player who wins Ivy titles, NCAA tournament games and even national championships. When two teams field complementary talent, Westfall is the kind of standout who can single-handedly determine the outcome. She is the kind of athlete who can wow crowds with not only her ball control skills but also her creativity. In the Ivy League this year, Westfall is one of a kind.

Entering this season, Westfall was already an Ivy Rookie of the Year and a freshman All-American. Now she is the Crimson’s Athlete of the Week. It’s been a long time coming.

From her Harvard debut against Texas A&M a year ago to her game-winning assist at Yale on Saturday, Westfall has distinguished herself with her ability to outwit her defenders. In the midfield, she moves the ball forward. When she has time and space near the net, she is a scoring threat. That makes her Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton’s obvious choice on free kicks within striking distance.

Given control of her team’s fate in the 111th minute at Yale this weekend, she created what Wheaton later called an “incredible, world-class goal.” Facing a wall of several defenders, Westfall could have attempted the expected and drilled the ball into the corners. Instead she flicked the ball softly over the wall and placed it perfectly so that junior forward Beth Totman—the Ivy League’s choice for Player of the Week—could place it easily into the net. Westfall’s pass was unconventional yet fundamental. There is little more rudimentary in soccer than making the ball available in open spaces where teammates have an advantage, and there was no better open space than the gap between the Yale wall and the goalkeeper.

“The mind and the guts behind a goal like that are amazing,” Wheaton said.

Had the pass failed, what would have happened?

“She’s just lucky it went in, because if it didn’t, she would have probably heard about it,” Wheaton said facetiously.

But Westfall didn’t take the time to consider failure.

“I wasn’t thinking so I just flipped it,” Westfall said. “If I had thought about it I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

Nothing less would be expected of Westfall, who has a penalty kick goal and three assists on the season. This is, after all, the same Westfall who scored a golden goal in the Golden State a year ago in San Diego and who spectacularly figured in both goals when Harvard dealt Princeton its only Ivy loss last season. And in the second round of NCAAs against Hartford, she came back from a chicken pox quarantine to set up the heroic game-winning header of Ashley Mattison ’01 after clanging a shot off the crossbar.

This afternoon at Ohiri Field, Harvard will face its first ranked opponent of the year in No. 25 Massachusetts. There is more of Westfall’s inventiveness yet to come.