The Perfect Save

"Bailey! Hurry up! We are going to be late." my mom yelled.

I quickly shuffled on my Nike slides, grabbed my new CR7 galaxy cleats, and rushed out the door. I was on my way to a very exciting soccer practice. We were scrimmaging the boys! My team had played them before and lost by a penalty kick in the last minute of play. Therefore, we wanted revenge.

As we pulled into a parking space, I saw some of the girls on my team freestyling on the field. I hopped out of the car and made my way over to my teammates. I quickly got my cleats on, because I wanted to practice the new trick I had recently gotten down, the Around the World. I unzipped my backpack to take out my ball, only to find it wasn't there. "NOOO!" I thought in my head. How could I? A soccer player's worst nightmare is forgetting their ball! I had to stand, suffering from boredom, as my teammates all practiced their tricks. Finally, it was time to warm up. My coach laid out two lines of cones, parallel to each other, and we did exercises to get our bodies loose and ready to play. I then went to get my gloves and keeper jersey on. Luckily, I hadn't forgotten them!

Before I knew it, we were playing.

I spit on my gloves, as much as I hate it, and got prepared to stop anything coming my way. For some reason, we were getting dominated. All of our passes got stolen and all of our moves failed. Fortunately, we held them off with our strong defense to be tied 0-0 at halftime.

Compared to other teams in the area, my team was not good. We had strong players and played well, but we definitely were not a premier level team. I got teased for playing on my team. However, I never had any comebacks, because it was the truth. I didn't deserve to play on that team. I constantly was told to play for a better team and that I could excel on a higher level squad. I couldn't leave my team though. The girls were my family. I loved them all and couldn't give up on them. I just had to hope that things would get better.

At halftime, Coach was not happy. "Ladies, what are you doing? You're not playing your best! You've seem to have given up." He was right. We had given up. We were sick of losing and not playing well. "Please just pick it up in the second half?!?" We moped back onto the field. After constant scoldings from our coach, we had lost our confidence. However, as a goalkeeper, I was a leader on the team. I needed to pick up the girls, no matter how hard it was.

"Come on girls! We know how to do this! Just play our game!" I yelled right before the referee blew the whistle.

The striker began dribbling at me. I recognized him as Jacob Brown, a tall, blonde boy that I had seen at school. He had gotten past my line of defenders, so it was just him and me.

Goalkeeper 101 is to never stay on your line when it's 1v1. Coming out at the player decreases the space he or she can put the ball in the goal. It cuts off the shooter's angle making it harder to score. Going one on one with the striker is one of the most common ways goalies get hurt. Although, I knew I had to come out.

I needed to save this shot. If not, my team and I would be down a goal and have to get it back. It would be embarrassing to lose. I had lost enough and didn't need to suffer another one. To make the situation even better, my ex-boyfriend, Matt Taylor, was on the opposing team. I needed to show him that my team didn't suck, as he thought it did.

The moment came. I sprinted out, made myself big, got low, and began to dive, hands first, to the ball. As this was happening, Jacob Brown randomly passed the ball to space. No one was there. In the split second that I tried to figure out what he was doing, I felt a horrible blow to my knee. I cried out and fell on the ground. The striker just purposely dove into me, midair, cleats up, hitting my knee. The pain was overwhelming. The next thing I knew, my ex-boyfriend and Jacob were in a fist fight. Seeing what Jacob had done to me, Matt ran over and for some reason started defending me.