WSHS senior Adriana Havens

Story, photos, video by Jason Grotelueschen
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

It was all about the seniors on Friday, as the West Seattle High School girls’ soccer team hosted Seattle Academy for a special match at Hiawatha Playfield.

The visiting team from Seattle Academy came out on top 3-0 in the match, which was the second-to-last regular-season home game of the year for WSHS. With the loss, the Wildcats now have a season record of 5-4-2.

WSHS usually plays home matches at Walt Hundley Playfield in High Point, but as we had previewed here, program manager Sarah Heitman told us that they held this game at Hiawatha (right after school, next door), hoping for a big community turnout to help celebrate “senior night” as a tribute to the WSHS players who are graduating after this school year.

And what a turnout it was, with fans packed into the sideline area east of the field…

…with proud family members and fellow students holding signs honoring the soon-to-be-graduates:

In all, there are nine seniors on the WSHS girls’ soccer squad:

From left to right, that’s Claire Murray, Adriana Havens, Grace Reasoner, Lillian O’Claire, Grace Carroll, Layla Ho, Anna Sievertson, Kate Russell and Ellie Miller. 

To show love to the seniors, there were two ceremonies on Friday, one at halftime and one after the game.

During halftime, WSHS head coach Dan Carew read comments that each of the seniors had written about their favorite WSHS teacher or staff member who had a particularly profound impact on them:

 Here are the seniors with their favorite WSHS educators:

The honored staffers, from left to right in the back row of the photo above, are Chris Harris (chosen by senior Kate Russell), Jessica Mathews (Sievertson), Julia Harper (Ho), Tom Burggraff (Miller), Alex Cordero (O’Claire), Rachel Myers (Carroll), Mary Logel (Reasoner), Kyle Glover (Havens), and Mallory Neuman (Murray).

The second ceremony was after the match, and there wasn’t a dry eye on the field as Wildcat teammates gave heartfelt speeches in honor of each of the nine outgoing seniors.

Here’s our video of all of the student speeches (a bit over 20 minutes):

Here are some photos of the Wildcats in action during Friday’s game. 

Senior Layla Ho:

Senior Grace Reasoner:

Senior Ellie Miller:

Senior Adriana Havens:

Junior Ava Wheatley:

Sophomore Ella Curtis:

Sophomore Juliette Harding:

Sophomore Brooklyn Crowe:

Running off the field through a “tunnel of teammates” were seniors Claire Murray and Lillian O’Claire:

A corner kick by junior Izzy Waite:

Post-match “good game” exchanges:

And an enthusiastic tunnel of classmates:

The Wildcats’ next game is at home (Walt Hundley) on Tuesday (October 21) vs Lakeside at 4pm, followed by their regular-season finale on the road on Thursday (October 23) at Ingraham.