Note: Typed this up on Saturday. Saved it instead of publishing it. So I'm posting it today.
My friend on the team was having an off night last night, so today I forced her to come out to lunch and watch Hairspray with me before our game. It was hilarious and fun. We were anxious about our game because we didn't have Lauren. I don't think I mentioned that before...she got injured at our game 2 weeks ago. She is our main defense, the one who we all depend on, our rock, the glue of the team, etcetera, etcetera. Well she's injured and is unable to play for 2 more months, and then she has physical therapy. Guess who got to play her position: Moi.
It wasn't too bad last weekend because we played easy teams, but today was the game that really mattered. Today was the day that we needed to win to go to playoffs. And what do we do? We lose.
Within the first 2 minutes of the game, our keeper breaks her pinkie and is being driven off the field. I don't even know how that happened. There was a player behind me, I was blocking for her to grab the ball, she was going for the ball, and then all of the sudden she's on the floor screaming. She had to yank off her glove and then I had to make sure she couldn't look at her hand.
This is a picture she sent us from the hospital.
I am completely serious when I say it looked worse looking at it from her palm facing up. You could see the bone sticking out and it was just horrible.
We put our second keeper in the net and she started mentioning something about possibly pulling a muscle in her leg, so she wouldn't run out to get the ball.
At half-time, we were down 0-1. And Sam, Ashlynn and I were not happy. Sam and I are defense and were fed up with our current keeper. Sierra, the girl who was supposed to play in front of me would not stay on her player and would continuously drift over to Sam and end up getting in the way, and then the player that was left open would get the ball. Every time. Ashlynn was mad because she plays forward and the other team knew she could score, so Ashlynn had 3 girls marking her at all times. The forward that was supposed to be helping her was not giving any effort at all and wouldn't run for the ball.
Like I said: not happy.
The second half did not get better. By this time, most of the team had given up. The midfield weren't running for the ball or marking their players, only 2 players were actually trying to score, and it seemed like the defense was falling to pieces before my eyes.
And then our second keeper hit her head. The opponent was coming up the left side of the field, the player that was supposed to be marking her was no where to be found, so I told Parky, the defender on that side, to go pressure her so she would give up the ball. So she did. But then Sierra just had to try and save the day, even though Parky was doing wonderfully. What happened? Sierra got in the way, and the ball was passed to an open player. The very player Sierra was supposed to be marking. I went to pressure her, and the ball was passed back to the original player, who was open, who took a shot.
The ball should not have gone it. If someone had just placed their foot in front of the ball, it would have been stopped easily; but that's not what happened. Our keeper lunged for the ball and hit her head on the goal and the ball went in. The surrounding players immediately went to her, and we all noticed her pupils were dilated, which meant there was a possibility that she got a concussion, and we weren't going to let her play.
We were down 0-2, both of our main keepers were out because of injury, our main defender was out, Sam had a swollen ankle from the weekend before, and there was only 15 minutes left of the game.
We put our back-up keeper in the net and played on. It would have been one thing to just lose. I would have been better with us playing our hearts out and that just not being enough. But no. Everyone just gave up. It was aggravating and pitiful.
Sierra, though. I was ready to kick that girl out. It's one thing to try to mark a player and not being fast enough, or just unable to get the ball from her. It's another thing to completely ignore what the entire defense was telling her, give me a dirty look, and then run up field to get in the way more. It was a slap to the face. I am not in my normal position. I can't help out like I normally do. I needed someone marking the girl in front of me so I could do my position's job and help out. I can't do that when I have a girl tailing me. Sierra doesn't like me, though, so she would give me a dirty look and completely ignore me whenever I asked her to mark the ball. She wouldn't give the same look to the rest of the defense, though, just ignore them. It was a huge slap to the face and we were all ready to kick her out.
We ended up losing 0-2 with Ashlynn and I ready to strangle some girls. So we did the next best thing. We clasped each other's hand, intertwined our fingers, and squeezed as hard as we could. We walked over to the group seemingly holding hands, but the closer we got, the more everyone noticed that our knuckles were white and our faces were carefully blank.
I should let it be known that I am a crier. Something amazing happens, I cry. Something sad, I cry. The angrier I get, the harder I cry.
Well, as soon as I got back to my car, I broke down crying.
Cried on the drive home.
Then kept on cry once I got back home.
Took a shower, where I continued to cry.
Then I got on Facebook, where I got into a chat with Sam and Ashlynn where we each ranted and then made plans to get together for a movie night next weekend. We let ourselves get out all our anger, and then we cheered each other up with just the general hilarity the ensues when we all get together and can talk without restraint.
And now I am typing this up; still a little aggravated, but thankfully not as much as I was earlier.
I can honestly say, that much anger is exhausting and I think I'm ready for bed.
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