Photo courtesy of Carl Gulbish
There are plenty of good high school girls teams in the Philadelphia area.
Then there’s CB East.
The defending PIAA 4A state champions finished the regular season with a 16-1-1 record and will begin the playoffs as the top seed in the District 1. Nationally, they are currently ranked 18th in the United Soccer Coaches association poll but were as high as the third-best high school team in the country before a 2-1 to No. 3 Pennridge two weeks ago snapped their 21-game unbeaten streak.
The winning streak dated back to last season’s district quarterfinal loss to rival CB South, who also beat the Patriots in the 2025 regular season. But after winning their district playbacks and winning on the road in the state playoffs, East got their revenge in the state final. Jumping out to an early lead on Kiera Sleicher’s free kick, East continued to wear down South in the first half with five goals, eventually winning the game 7-0 to lift the school’s first-ever girls soccer state title.
East had been close over the years.
In 2024, East went 23-2 en route to a District 1 championship but fell short in the state semifinal to Downingtown West. Downingtown went on to lift the state trophy after a 3-2 overtime win over Conestoga, who gave the Patriots their only regular season loss that year.
In 2022 and 2023, East lost to Central Dauphin in the first round of states after 16-win seasons and another district final appearance in 2022.
Since 2024, CB East has a combined record of 51-7-1.
Of their seven losses, one came against that season’s state champion, three against state finalists, and one against 2025 district champion Pennridge, who also won states in 2023. Five of East’s losses were against teams within the SOL Colonial division, which has produced four state champions and five district champions since 2018. That’s not including East’s rival CB West, who has won a total of eight state championships in their program’s history and won four-straight from 1993 to 1996.
In recent years, CB East has shifted the balance of power in the SOL Colonial, and large part of the team’s success has to do with its current senior class, who among them alone represent some of the area’s best individual soccer players. Collectively, they’re one of the area’s most dynamic girls soccer teams that has stepped on the field.
“This class has been transformational for us,” CB East head coach Jake Nesteruk said after his team’s 6-0 win against Upper Dublin earlier this season. “We’ve had incredible classes come before this, but this group is special. The level of ability that we have across the group in pretty much every spot, it speaks volumes. They’re the reason this program has achieved so much in the last couple years. And what makes them even better is they’re great kids. They’re great students. They do everything that they need to do on and off the field, so I can’t say enough great things about them.”
Nesteruk, who is in his seventh season leading the Patriots, knows the school’s history well. The former goalkeeper for The College of New Jersey was member of CB East’s boys teams that reached states his sophomore through senior seasons. East lost in the state semifinals in 2010, and in his senior year, reached the district final. Last season, Nesteruk won his 100th game as East’s coach and has overseen the program’s rise to the top of the area high school landscape.
After winning the state championship last fall, East had the fortune of returning a majority of its key players. Those players have risen to the challenge of being THE game their opponents circle on their calendars as the one they most want to win. Knocking off a state champion can go a long way to fulfilling a team’s season.
But East is having none of it. They are as locked in and focused as if every opponent is a state finalist, rather than an inferior adversary.
“Part of it is this class has had the privilege of playing with some really good classes before them,” Nesteruk said, “senior classes that won state titles, a district championship, and I think that standard the alums have set before, our kids take the jersey and they run with it. They want to leave it in a better place.”
The other quality that stands out for Nestruk among his seniors has been the mindset the players have developed from the models set by the players before them. He says they’re able to remove the emotion from the game and keep things simple, which leads to a higher level of performance. And all of that starts with his senior leadership. “It’s a great leadership group where they just go ‘Can we figure out how to not let our emotions get the best of us? To trust each other in key moments? To work hard when we don’t want to work hard? And they just want to do it.’”
East is led by tri-captains Mia Forney, Kiera Sleicher, and Ava Mignon, who individually could be any other high school team’s best player.
Forney has been the league MVP the past two seasons and received All-State honors last year. The University of Maryland commit scored 20+ goals and had 14+ assists in each of the previous high school seasons and was on pace to do the same again this year before nagging injury slowed her down. With her club team HEX FC, she’s been selected to play in the ECNL national game the past two years. Earlier this year, Forney represented Italy’s U-17s in two Euro qualifiers.
Forney plays mostly on the right side of an attacking three that includes Taylor Roumy on the left and Riley Leedy in the middle. She’s often doubled teamed but is able to get out of trouble quickly off the dribble or combine with one of her teammates to find space behind a defense. In one vs one situations, she’s been nearly un-guardable.
Roumy has been East’s most dangerous player around goal this season. She’s scored in eleven-straight games and leads the team with 16 goals. The 2025 First Team All-League players has committed to the University of Richmond next year. Roumy, who plays for HEX FC, registered her 100th career point for East in the 6-0 win over Upper Dublin. Another senior, Riley Leedy, who has six goals and an assist, has been integral as a center striker and is often swarmed by multiple defenders in the penalty area due to East’s opponents staying deep and compact. She is planning on playing for Lock Haven next fall.
Sleicher controls the central midfield for East. She plays more like a possession number ten, but she can score as well as any striker in the high school game. She had a hat-trick in last fall’s state final and has scored number of golazos already this season. This season, she’s second on the team in scoring with 12 goals and 5 assists. Sleicher has been named All-League in each of the past two seasons and has earned All-ECNL honors for her club team, the Ukranian Nationals. She has committed to play for James Madison next fall.
Joining Sleicher in the midfield, Mattie Williams and Mackenzie Peters are two more college commits who move around field, often overloading to one side or the other as East controls the ball for long stretches at a time. Williams, another First Team All-Leaguer who plays for FC DELCO, recently committed to Villanova, and Peters, who plays for Next Level Soccer Academy, recently committed to The College of New Jersey. Together, they provide balance to East’s fluid attacking style, adding a high level of skill and soccer knowledge. East rarely gets trapped in poor positions, but when they do, they have a high work rate in winning the ball back, which leads to extended periods of possession that wears down opponents throughout a game.
When an opponent does stop East in possession and begins to counter, they have to outrun Mignon, which is an extremely difficult task. The senior defensive midfielder has won multiple state championships in the 4×800 meters and is tireless in the midfield both offensively and defensively. She’s been a keystone in East’s build up play from the back and equally as formidable in the counter-press, disrupting and shutting down East’s opponents from generating any kind of rhythm going forward when they do get the ball. Mignon has recently committed to St. Joseph’s.
“We’re tight on and off the field,” Mignon said after East’s game against Upper Dublin this season. “So I think that translates on to the field with our performances.”
Williams said her senior class is very motivated to return to a state final. “We all really want it again. Some of us grew up playing together, so we grew up with the same commitment and love for the game.”
Since East’s loss to South, just over one year ago, they’ve approached every game with a strong desire to play at their highest level regardless of their opponent. There’s been no trap games, no evidence of a mental lapse or a day off. Even the games they’ve been tested in the most this season, a 0-0 draw against West Chester Henderson and both games against Pennridge, the quality of their performance had been the same. Henderson sat in and pressed everything inside their own half, often doubling Forney and Roumy on the wings, but East still carried most of the play and hit one bar, one post, and created enough chances to win by multiple goals. In the first game against Pennridge, the Rams caught them with a few strong set pieces and counters, but it also led to East finding a higher gear that most teams in the state will find difficult to compete against. In the streak-breaking loss to Pennridge, the Rams continued to dig all game and really were the first opponent to outplay East in portions of a game.
“We reflect off the game, and we move on with a stronger mentality,” Mignon said. “We don’t let losses or setbacks get to us. Whatever comes at us, we can handle.”
Williams says the loss to East last year in districts only made the team more hungry. “We didn’t like how it felt to lose, and we just took what we learned form that game and put it into the rest of the season.”
And East has been winning ever since.
The success has put a target on their backs since the start of the season. They’ve been every opponent’s biggest game, and those opponents have come at them in different ways. Some have tried to press them, others have set back in a low block. A few have tried to play them straight up. But most teams have relied on playing with a higher intensity, cheering every tackle, every shot on goal, every block in front, the small victories that can build momentum in a game and a season.
East’s opponents have given them something to build on as well.
“When they’re stacking the back, it’s harder for us to play the way we want to play,” Mignon said, “so we just have to dig a little deeper and find those extra passes to get us through.”
Williams agrees that East enjoys the challenge of figuring out how to get through some of the different strategies they’ve faced this season. “Those harder games are preparing us for playoffs, and now’s the time to practice against teams that are going to load the back.”
East’s leadership continues throughout its starting XI. Ella Roumy, Addie Langlois, and Cece Hayes make up East’s backline, which can sometimes shift from a back three to a back four. With Maddie Thompson playing behind them in goal, East has been as stout defensively as they are explosive offensively. East has only conceded nine goals this season, and Thompson has earned fourteen shutouts. Ella Roumy and Langlois also possess the skill of midfielders to get forward on the flanks when possible. Roumy has contributed four assists while Langlois has added three.
Hayes, a First Team All-League midfielder in lacrosse, will be playing lacrosse at Davidson next year, while Roumy will join her sister at Richmond. Langlois will play at Susquehanna next year, and Thompson will play for Rowan. Out of East’s 11 seniors, all of them have committed to a college athletic program.
As much as East has thrived with the pressure of being the team to beat, they’ve reached the part of the season where at any moment, the next game could be their last. They are the favorites to win the state title again, but sometimes the path doesn’t always go as smooth as the projected seedings. Last season, they entered districts as the second seed before losing in the quarterfinals and climbing back to finish fifth.
Peters Township is the last school to win back-to-back state titles in the largest school grouping. Before the addition of 4A in 2016, they won the 3A state title in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Pennridge is the last team to pull off a 4A district-state double, having accomplished the feat in 2020 and 2023. Moon won two-straight 3A titles in 2022 and 2023.
East received a bye in the First Round as the top seed and will play the winner of No. 16 CB South and No. 17 Boyertown on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. East beat South 2-0 earlier in the season and 3-0 last week. If the seeds hold, East could face No. 4 Council Rock South in the semifinals. CB East beat CR South in a scrimmage during preseason.
