BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
EDISON — The varsity soccer team is sorely missing a captain this year. But, coach Taya Semple will tell you, there will forever be an angel in the fields.
Kelley McCaffrey, 17, the team’s captain and Metuchen resident, was killed in a car accident in Pennsylvania on Labor Day afternoon, said Semple.
“It’s so hard to think that she is gone,” she said on Tuesday, just hours after she received the news.
“She may be physically gone from the soccer field, but she will always be with us,” Semple said. “Now we have our little soccer angel.”
Kelley, who just turned 17 last month, was coming home from Pennsylvania where she was visiting family for the holiday, when the accident occurred, said Semple.
“From what I understand, the accident happened on Route 78.,” she said.
As of press time, police in Pennsylvania could not be contacted.
Semple got the news at 11:30 p.m. on Monday from the junior varsity soccer coach.
It was Tuesday when she went into school faced with the task of telling Kelley’s 40 teammates what happened.
“It really hit me when I walked into the school and felt the sadness from everyone,” she said. “Today was very hard. The entire school was just devastated. I walked in and everyone I encountered was in tears. It’s like a small, close family of 800 in this school [Bishop George Ahr High School, Edison].”
But for her, the news was especially difficult. Semple knew McCaffrey from the time she was in sixth grade.
“Kelley had been coming to Bishop Ahr to practice soccer since sixth grade,” Semple said. “She used to come here with her neighbor who was the coach then, when I was a student at Bishop Ahr and on the team. From the time I first met her, she just stood out as a kid with more energy, enthusiasm and focus than anyone I had ever seen.”
By the time McCaffrey got to high school, Semple had gone through college and become her coach.
“Kelley had been playing varsity soccer since she was a freshman,” Semple said. “Kelly was the epitome of what an athlete was: a smart, warm and generous person, who a leader on and off the field. She led through her actions. She was the first one on the field and the last one off for games and practices.”
McCaffrey had a smile on her face at all times, Semple said.
“She never complained,” she said. “No matter what, she always just put that smile on and did above and beyond anything she was asked. She will be missed terribly. But we will keep that smile and attitude in our hearts.”