SPRINGFIELD — After his team raised the Western Mass. championship plaque, Northampton boys soccer senior Will Senn-McNally summed up the team’s season with a declaration on the sideline.
“It’s been a long time coming.”
One year after losing the Western Mass. Class A title in a shootout to Longmeadow, followed by a 1-0 loss to West Springfield in the state semifinals, the Blue Devils finally got the redemption they were looking for.
Standing on the same field where they saw the championship slip away in 2025, the No. 1 Blue Devils (16-0-2) beat No. 3 Agawam (8-7-4), 1-0, in a physical match at Springfield Central on Monday night.
“Could not imagine leaving high school without winning it this year,” Senn-McNally said. “(Last season’s loss to West Springfield) was really the low point of our high school team. To turn it around like that this year, it means the world.”
Time after time this fall, the senior co-captain has come through on offense when the team needed a play, whether it was making a pass or scoring a hat trick.
With the championship on line Monday, he scored the team’s lone goal with 23 minutes left in the second half.
Bishop Loughrey took the throw-in almost even with the goalie box. He threw the ball far enough for the Blue Devils to set up right in front of the net. Senn-McNally timed his leap perfectly to head the ball into the bottom left corner for the goal.
“We are strong in the air and it’s something we work on a lot,” Senn-McNally said. “We knew if we kept putting pressure on them, whether that be throw-in or balls in behind, we can have some luck.”
Both teams found limited scoring opportunities throughout the game. Agawam goalie Joey Papadakis made several impressive saves on hard shots from the Blue Devils. Northampton’s Owen MacLachlan thought he had a goal after making a move past Papadakis, only for a Brownie defender to kick the ball away right before it crossed the goal line.
“They made us work incredibly hard for every single thing,” Northampton head coach Matt Card said. “We knew it was going to be tough coming in.”
The Blue Devils entered this fall looking to “right the wrongs of last season,” Card explained. Like in 2025, Northampton went undefeated in the regular season. It’s only two losses came in the postseason. Every win this year represented a step closer to cashing in on their goals.
“We always knew we had the potential to do it,” Northampton senior co-captain Sam Busone said. “As younger players we didn’t have the physicality or the mindset to be in the big games yet. Through the progression of our team and our older guys leaving, we had to step into that role, and we finally got it done in our last chance.”
Northampton avoided a repeat letdown to West Springfield thanks to a 1-0 win in the Class A semifinals. Taking down the team who erased their state title dreams allowed the Blue Devils to finally put last year’s shortcomings behind and focus on the championship.
“We know how we can play when we’re under high pressure environments,” Busone said. “We trusted each other to win this game. It came down to us playing together for a long time in the chemistry we have together. The technical ability was out the window. We just dug deeper than them at the end.”
By winning their league and now Western Mass., the Blue Devils checked off two of their three goals going into the season. The group now turns to the state tournament where it will be ranked as one of the top teams in Div. 2.
