The Whitehall boys and girls soccer teams are each battling for their spot in the playoffs past the midway point of the fall season.

The Zephyr boys team captured a thrilling overtime victory against Easton on Monday, Sept. 23. Whitehall scored first with a goal by Kresstoph Whittick. The teams went into halftime with Whitehall leading 1-0. Easton answered with a goal in the second half by Jonathan Morello to force overtime. In overtime, Whitehall’s Abdul Ojulari-Sulyman netted the game-winning goal.

The victory improves the Zephyr record to 8-3 overall and 5-3 in conference play. Whitehall is currently in second place in the EPC Skyline conference, behind an undefeated (12-0, 7-0) Emmaus team.

After losing 4-1 to Parkland on Sept. 16th, the boys soccer team has won three consecutive games and will next play a Nazareth team with just one victory.

On the girls’ side, the Zephyrs hold a 6-4 record, however with just a 2-3 record in the division, they will have to climb the standings a bit in the next few weeks.

“We play the toughest league schedule and have been in everyone with some quality wins over Emmaus, Nazareth and Easton and some tight losses to parkland and Northampton and Pleasant Valley,” expressed Zephyr girls head coach Chris Bleam. “We are in every game and are slowly learning the little things necessary for success.

We took a giant step forward with a 5-2 win over a quality Easton team. It was 5-1 until they scored in the final minute.”

Prior to Easton, the girls’ squad was coming off of a blowout 8-0 win over ES South. The win moves the Zephyrs to 2-2 over their past four games.

“We have a team that is growing with the season and we are getting some leadership now from our five seniors,” Bleam said.

Bleam expressed the importance of team’s next stretch of league games. If the Zephyrs want to make the playoffs, they will need to take down good teams in Nazareth and Northampton over the next couple weeks.

“We are looking to finish strong and qualify for district and hopefully league playoffs,” he said. “We have a tough finishing stretch with 5 of 6 remaining opponents having better records than we have but we believe we improve and learn from each game and will be very competitive down the difficult final stretch.”

The girls soccer team will next play at home against Dieruff at 6:30 p.m. Dieruff comes into the game with a 2-11 overall record.