Congratulations to soccer player Jill Nestor for being nominated for October Student Athlete of the Month!

Nestor plays on the WMC soccer team and she also runs track in the spring. She has continued her soccer career for all four years of high school, clearly demonstrating her commitment and love for the sport.

Nestor’s first memories of playing soccer are when she was around 5 years old. Her earliest memory of playing soccer is “going to her sister’s practices and playing with a soccer ball by [herself].” Nestor describes the over team dynamic as positive because the team has quickly become a large group of “really close friends off the field, which helped us connect as a team on the field, and the friendships definitely helped us.” Previously, Nestor explained that the team was definitely going through growing pains at first due to some newer players; however, throughout the season the team improved and grew closer.

Nestor’s favorite memory of soccer at West Morris was “winning the state finals junior year.” She found this to be her favorite memory due to the celebration they had when the game ended in a win, which was really exciting for the whole team.

To balance school and sports, she would recommend to underclassmen to “prioritize school work…and use free periods as much as you can.” This advice especially applies to student athletes with limited free time.

Nestor would advise her freshman self to “be confident and know that your time will come, and value everything because it goes by quickly.” In other words, she would tell the freshmen to be patient with sports and athletics in order to thrive in the future.

Regarding college, Nestor is still undecided but plans on majoring in nursing at a university with preferably a large population size. She is not planning on pursuing soccer in college. Congratulations to Jill Nestor on this achievement and best of luck in college!