How Soccer Changed My Life

Imagine standing on a softball field expected to perform at the age of 5. Even though the butterflies in my stomach were starting a war, nothing was going to stop me from stepping on that field to play my first tee ball game as a Little Tiger. Fans cheered, but what I noticed most was a little boy in the outfield picking his nose. Standing in the box, I was terrified; the field looked huge. I had never seen anything like this before, but I knew that the little boy was the person I needed to hit the ball to, so I hit the ball as hard as I could. The ball went soaring through the air like a bird on fire. Dropping from the air, it rolled to the fence. At that time, I knew I had fallen in love with the game of softball. I was smiling from ear to ear, I couldn’t believe I had hit the ball that far! Both sides screamed, yelled, and shouted with excitement. Was all this commotion for me? I rounded first, but I couldn’t go to second because my teammate, Kylie Leach, didn’t run. I didn’t know what she was doing. Sadly, the batter after me hit a ground ball to the pitcher, and the other team threw him out at first.

It was the biggest game of the year, what every person wants to win, the championship. The score is tied 24-24 and the Idaho Hawks had the ball on twenty one yard line. It was third down and five and they ran the ball for only two yards and it was fourth down. They went for the field goal and got it. The score was 27-24 and the Texas Rams were ready to receive to it. On the return they ran for twenty yards. With only five seconds left the quarterback, John Halen, threw the ball to James Morgan. Morgan outran the cornerback and with no time left Morgan at the five yard line dropped the ball. The Hawks won, they were the champions.

Four minutes later 13 scored to make it four to three. The cheers of the crowd echoed in the arena. Then we went 10 minutes without scoring. With 5 minutes left. I skated around the defensmen went to my forehand, backhand. Score! It was four to four. Now it was tied.

We got changed in the locker room, listening to music that would get our adrenaline pumping. The game started with a tip-off with us getting the ball and scoring on the first play, but so did the other team. The game was very close. We would score, they would score. No one ever got ahead by more than four points. At the end of the second quarter with ten seconds left, it was their ball and we were down by two. They did a nice play and a girl got a wide open three pointer. Then the buzzer went off and we all looked at our fuming coach and knew what was about to come at half time. You know that scene in the movie, “42” about Jackie Robinson, where the other teams coach is yelling at him saying rude things? And then there’s the heartbreakingly beautiful scene where Jackie goes into the dugout and breaks his bat and screams and cries. That’s what our halftime was like. The coach yelling and us wanting to scream and cry, but still we had determination to win this game. We came back out ready to play and immediately tied it back it up. The game kept going back and forth, until the fourth quarter with a minute left and us up by four. The other teams coach called a timeout and our coach gave us a speech about if we wanted to win, we needed teamwork. Teamwork just like Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. We came back out and held the game at four points until the buzzer went

Maria was already across home plate when the Robin’s shortstop racing for the ball picked it up bare hand and threw it so wildly across the diamond trying to get bobby at first.”

While I felt as if we would lose, I still wanted to try my hardest to change that outcome. I played my hardest at Shortstop and was able to get two of the three outs by a double play. Sadly that play had come at the expense of a run from their team. The last batter from their team was struck out and we headed back to get ready and bat. The crowd kept supporting us through the bad calls from the umpire and the strikeouts even to this point. The team was motivated and ready to take this game and head to finals with my morale boosted I got ready to cheer my team on

While I felt as if we would lose, I still wanted to try my hardest to change that outcome. I played my hardest at Shortstop and was able to get two of the three outs by a double play. Sadly that play had come at the expense of a run from their team. The last batter from their team was struck out and we headed back to get ready and bat. The crowd kept supporting us through the bad calls from the umpire and the strikeouts even to this point. The team was motivated and ready to take this game and head to finals with my morale boosted I got ready to cheer my team on

There has been many important events that have occurred since I have been born but there is one in particular that has sparked a light in me that has changed the way i have looked at things. It happened when I was playing with the Sacramento FC and everything was going well until the middle of the season. When we got to the middle of the season things started to look shady. I wasn't getting playing time and that really opened my eyes to reality. Soccer was not the only thing that I needed to do in order to have a good life. I needed to start focusing on my dreams and different routes to success other then just soccer. It really showed what I need to do in order to survive in the real world. If it was not for my family's support through this

Walking out onto the opponent’s brightly lit turf field setting up for the kickoff of the second half just gave me the feeling that everybody knows, my hair starts to stand up, butterflies began to flutter in my stomach, and everything seems to slow down. Looking into the stands and seeing that our hometown fans had traveled four hours in order to outdo the home crowd gave me a sense of comfort. Looking into East Jefferson’s stands and seeing that our fans, despite having to travel all the way down south, outnumbered their fans by at least 70 people. I found myself thinking that this meant just as much to our town as it did to our school and team. This feeling would be just the motivation we needed in order to finish this game

Being girls of the ages fourteen to eighteen we did not know how to react. We have never in our life went to school and heard all these headlines about how the program we worked so hard to build is not going to make it in our county. Knowing we had no support from anyone besides our coaches and families led us to constantly being down. We were continuously mocked of from higher ranked teams, even if we won a game. All that proceeded in our heads were that how can people think so small of a group of teenage girls. No one wanted to be last in our division anymore, but we didn't have faith in ourselves as a result of no one having confidence in us.

The 11-play,65-yard drive ended with a 2-yard touchdown run by, Chapman. The point after kick by,Nathan Liesen was good, making this a,20-7 game, with 43.6 left in the half.

Now the New Albany girls are up by two. They get back in position for the draw and Bassani wins. “Bassani running down the field and trying to score.” said the announcer.

Illinois players with the fancy navy blue jersey with orange pants started to get the crowd pumped as they were lining up for kickoff. The game was over at the start, during kickoff the kick returner was shaking and dropped the ball and was leveled by Illinois players. Following the drop ball, Murray State went three and out and punted the ball. The Illinois punt returner got great yardage and soon after the offense scored.

“I called a timeout over here in the third game and got a little bit heated with them and I think that kinda lit a spark under them.” Whaley said after the match, “I told them If you really want to win the game then you guys really need to prove it and come together as a team and you need to focus and you can’t lose focus at this point because we have no other option.”

Kelly was brought down after a strong run while on the attack, but the defence was fractured as a result and Elianna Walton saw an opportunity to crash over for the Jillaroos fifth try of the afternoon.