It was a chilly evening during fall of 2014, and my high school soccer season was about to start.  My friend Jose and I decided to gather some of our friends to condition for soccer, since we were the team captains of our school last year.  We thought it’d be a great idea to condition so that we could prepare ourselves for soccer season in order to become State Champions.  Every year our goal was to get to the State Playoffs and hopefully become State Champions, we worked hard to try and reach our goal every year.

Jose and I would make a group chat in our phones specifically for our soccer team so that everyone knew what days we would train, or scrimmage.  We would message each other through this group chat.  We had a lot of returning players from the year before so we thought we would have a pretty good chance at becoming State Champions.  Mostly every day we’d gather at the soccer field in Vista Hermosa and scrimmage.  One day when we were scrimmaging, I received a through ball from my teammate Ivan, so I started sprinting after the ball. Suddenly I hear a pop below my thigh, it felt very painful because right away I felt a sharp tweak. I dropped to the ground, I knew I had pulled my hamstring and wouldn’t be able to play for quite a while.

After pulling my hamstring, I left for home, I really hoped I’d be able to recover quickly so that I would be able to play soccer once again.  When I got home I had my mom take a look at my hamstring and realized it was swollen.  Whenever I tried walking I would be limping because it hurt quite a bit.  I ended up not playing soccer for two weeks, and I felt fine because my leg didn’t hurt anymore, and since I thought I was good to play already I went to a soccer game with my club team, and the very first time I tried sprinting during the game I ended up reinjuring my hamstring once again.  The coach told me that to recover from a hamstring injury I’d have to sit out and not play soccer for at least 4 weeks, while icing my leg every day and taking some pills to calm down the swelling on my leg.

I felt mad/sad that I had to get injured, and wouldn’t be able to play soccer for a while.  Soccer is my favorite sport, and I absolutely love playing soccer.  I started thinking back to when my injury occurred and I thought maybe if I would have gotten out during the scrimmage with my high school team none of this would have happened, I mean my team was winning by a lot and I had scored two goals, but I wanted to get a hat trick so I didn’t get out, therefore I got injured.  Soccer season eventually started and I had to sit out for two weeks because I had injured my hamstring.

When soccer season started I couldn’t play the first couple of games because of my injury, I missed about five games.  But then I finally was able to play soccer once again, so I started training with the high school soccer team.  I felt great for the first couple of games I played, and the season couldn’t have started in any better way for the soccer game because we were undefeated for the first couple of games.  We went 7-0 before losing our first game against Mac High, which is an Oregon school, we lost that game 3-1 and I scored the only goal for our team that day.  I couldn’t believe we lost to them because we had beaten them at our home 4-1, and I scored three goals that game.

After that our season started going a little bit downhill because we ended up losing once again, two losses in a row, I couldn’t believe it, I absolutely dislike losing.  It was almost time to play for Districts and Regionals, but one again I ended up pulling my hamstring, and missed the rest of the regular season games.  But either way our school did well because they won districts quite easily, but ended up losing in regionals against a school from Spokane.  Finally it was time to play in State Playoffs, we were ranked 4th in the eastside of Washington so we had to go against the 1st place team in the eastside of Washington, which they were also ranked 1st in State.  It was the team that had beaten us in regionals and we wanted to beat them this time.

Game day came for the State Playoffs, it was a cold night at Spokane, we were the visiting team since we were the lower ranked team.  My hamstring felt pretty good and I thought that I was ready to play, so I warmed up with the soccer team, my hamstring bothered me a little bit during warm ups, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from playing.  Coach asked me if I was good to play and I said yes, but only about 10 minutes into the game I received a through ball (a pass between defenders into the open space between the fullbacks and the goalkeeper with the idea that a forward will beat the defenders to the ball) from my friend Jose, I tried sprinting after it, and ended up pulling my hamstring yet another time, I had no other choice but to sit in the bench and watch my team play.  I felt very sad because it was already State Playoffs and it was also my senior year, but I couldn’t play due to an injury.

First half of the State Playoffs was almost over, I remember there was about 15 minutes left to play, and my friend Jonny scored the first goal of the game, I remember seeing the faces of the other team’s players, they were shocked that they were losing.  First half score remained 1-0.  The coach motivated the players at half time to keep playing hard for the second half, I also tried encouraging the players to keep taking shots whenever they had the opportunity to do so, because I knew we could beat this team.  Second half of the game began and our opponents went on the attack, they got a corner kick, one of their players headed the ball towards the goal, but luckily one of our defenders was there to stop the ball from going in.  The game was pretty even throughout second half, when suddenly about 5 minutes left in the game we were on a counter attack, Luis received the ball at midfield and started dribbling towards the opponent’s side of the field, he passed the ball to Ivan, and Ivan dribbled past the last defender.  He was one on one against the keeper and had a clear opportunity to score, he took advantage of that opportunity and ended up scoring.  After he had scored we knew we were going to win, we did win, and we advanced to State Semi-Finals.

We had one week to prepare for the State Semi-Finals game, and I didn’t train because I was trying to rest in order to even have a chance at being able to play in the Semi-Finals game.  Finally game day came at Sunset Chev. Stadium, it was a chilly night on Nov. 22, 2014.  We were the home team during that game, so we wore our white uniforms.  I did not feel ready to play but I tried playing anyway since it was my senior year and we were in State Semi-Finals.  I couldn’t sprint because I knew if I even tried sprinting I would pull my hamstring all over again, therefore whenever I got the ball I tried passing it right away.  I only played 10 minutes of that game and coach took me out so that I could rest, so I could play in our next game which would be the next day.  If we lost we’d play for 3rd place the next day, but if we won we’d play in the Championship game.

Throughout all of first half both teams had opportunities to score but could not score, therefore the game was still 0-0 at halftime.  Second half was more intense because both teams wanted to score badly, and both teams had clear chances of scoring. There were about 20 minutes left in the game and my friend Ivan received the ball inside the penalty area, he took a shot and scored!  We were now up 1-0 in the State Semi-Finals game! 

After our team had scored the goal, we pretty much parked the bus for the rest of the game to try and prevent the other team from scoring.  But in stoppage time my friend Carlos fouled someone from the other team inside the penalty box, so the other team received a penalty kick.  It was their opportunity to score so they could tie, and send the game into extra time.  Someone from the other team stepped up to take the penalty kick.  I was feeling nervous, I didn’t want to even look,  I didn’t want the other player to make the penalty shot because I definitely didn’t want the game to go to extra time. The referee blew the whistle, the player ran up and took the shot, and missed!  The ball hits the crossbar and goes out!  We got so lucky that player missed the penalty shot in stoppage time.  But what mattered was that we were now advancing to the State Championship game!

The State Championship game was the next day after the Semi-Finals game, it was a pretty warm day, not too cold nor too hot, it was cloudy with a little fresh breeze at Sunset Chev. Stadium on Nov. 23, 2014.  This game mattered the most out of the whole season, so of course I wanted to play no matter what even though I was still hurt.  I did not care about getting hurt even more, all I could think about was trying to win that State Championship.  Before the game started coach said to me, “I want to see you play this game, play your heart out today, and I don’t want you coming out until we have to carry you off this field.”  That motivated me to want to play even more, coach wrapped up my leg before the game, made me do a couple stretches and then had me run a little bit to see if I’d be able to play.

It was finally time to play in the State Championship game.  There was barely three minutes into the game, and a defender from the other team made a mistake.  Ivan got the ball and took a shot, he scored!  We were up 1-0 in the State Championship game!  But there was still a lot of time left to play, so we didn’t get too confident and kept on playing to try and score more goals.  About 20 minutes into the game the other team scored and the game was tied 1-1.  With 10 minutes left in the game the other team scored once again on a counter attack, and we were now losing 2-1, and at halftime the score remained 2-1.

During halftime in the locker room the energy was still positive even though we were losing, coach said “Keep your heads up boys, we still have a whole second half to play, I believe we can win this, I believe in you guys.” Second half finally started and the game remained pretty even, there weren’t much scoring opportunities, then Sergio took a long shot, from about the 30 yard line and it hit right off the crossbar.  That was our closest chance of scoring during second half, and if that would have gone in we would have tied the game. Throughout the whole game my leg was bothering me, every time I tried to sprint, or when I would shoot I would feel a sharp tweak below my thigh, and it was painful.

Sadly we ended up losing that game 2-1.  We were very close of being State Champions, I was a State Champion my freshman year, and it would have also been nice to be a State Champion my senior year, but it was not meant to be.  Lesson I learned from trying to play with an injury is that, maybe if I would have waited a couple weeks I would have probably been ready to play in the State Championship game, but instead I played with a pulled hamstring and the injury kept getting worse.