Soccer (Varsity)
vs. The Taft School

On Saturday afternoon, The Ethel Walker School’s varsity soccer team hosted Taft in a pivotal Founder’s League contest. The home side took an early lead, but the visitors bounced back to score four of the next five goals in the contest and finished with a 4-3 win.

Gigi Peña ’26 opened the scoring on the afternoon when she scored for the second year in a row against the Rhinos. Ayden Riendeau ’26 recorded the assist and Walker’s had a 1-0 lead less than four minutes after the opening whistle.

Taft would respond with a goal just over five minutes later and then took the lead with 8:15 remaining in the opening half. Walker’s tied the game back up with just 1:22 on the scoreboard, and it looked like the teams would go into halftime deadlocked at one apiece. Jani Weber ’26 scored on an assist from Peña for Weber’s eighth goal of the season.

Taft would then score a goal on both sides of halftime to take a lead they would not relinquish. They surprised Walker’s off the kickoff and led 3-2 with 23 seconds remaining and then opened the second half with a goal just 48 seconds after the restart. Maya Atwood ’26 completed the scoring on the day when she put home a penalty kick with 17:49 left on the clock. On the day, Taft outshot their hosts 32-15 and controlled the run of play for the majority of the contest. Jenna Hamel ’25 recorded 14 saves in the goal for Walker’s.

The Wildcats will return to action on Wednesday when they travel to New York for a WWNEPSSA Class C contest against Millbrook. Kick-off is scheduled for 2:45.