“I don’t know how but you did it!” she shouts in my ear. “Getting us ahead at the last minute like that. I love you so hard right now.”
“Nice goal, Riss!” someone else yells. “Way to bring the fire!”
The ten-minute halftime in the guest locker room goes quickly. Coach Fenton is pleased that we’re ahead, but things can change on a dime especially with a team as aggressive as Bishop’s.
Coach clears his throat. “Okay, listen up. First off, great teamwork out there! Offense, follow your striker. Marin’s calls on the field and her shot on goal got us here. Let’s keep that drive going. Defense, you’ve been like a vise, let’s keep that up. Pearce,” he says, glancing at Jenna, “outstanding job manning the midfield line. Smith,” he snaps at a tired-looking brunette. “You’ve been letting your opponent get ahead of you the entire first half. Get your head in the game.”
“She’s too fast, Coach.”
He studies her, frowning. “Then Andrews is in.”
Jenna pokes me in the side and raises an eyebrow. Cara Andrews—second-string right forward, former friend and my current archnemesis—has been warming the bench the entire game. She used to be starting striker on the JV team freshman year until I got bumped up from right forward sophomore year. Now she’s been relegated to second string on the varsity team. I’d prefer to keep it that way, but it’s the coach’s call even if Jenna and I are the captains. I grit my teeth and keep my eyes on the coach. Cara’s presence on and off the field makes no difference to me.
Coach Fenton takes a long look around at all the sweaty, tired faces in the room. “Keep the momentum going, you earned it with blood and sweat. Don’t lose it now. We have a thirty-five-minute half to prove ourselves—show this team that the first half was just a taste of what we can do. Don’t take on any bad fouls and play a clean game. We’re the underdogs. Let’s own it. Come on, everybody hands in! Bring this home! Fighters on three—one, two, three...”
“Fighters!” we all yell in unison.
We troop fiercely onto the field, pumped full of adrenaline and courage. But by the time we’re three-quarters of the way through the second half, I’m so winded that I can barely breathe, and that’s saying a lot for me. The score is still one–zero with less than a quarter regulation time to go. We have to hold them off for seven more minutes. I glance down the field where Jenna and the center midfielder from Bishop’s are faced off in a bully. They thump the ground, then tap their sticks against each other and it’s on.
“Kate,” I yell to my left forward. “Watch your mark! If the ball comes to you, pass it to me or back to Jenna.”
“Got it.”
Jenna wins the ball and passes to one of her wingmen, who takes it up the right side of the field. Keeping my eye on my opponent, I charge up the middle just as my teammate passes Kate the ball. As instructed, she sends it my way, but within seconds, I am stormed by three defensive players from Bishop’s in some kind of blitz attack.
Dimly, I hear Coach Fenton screaming at me from the sidelines. “Pass it to Andrews, Marin! Andrews is wide-open! Marin, ANDREWS!”
Cara is indeed wide-open, but hell will freeze over before I pass her the ball. I can get the shot without her, even with the blitz. Ignoring the shouts from other teammates and my coach, I shove through the defensive line with otherworldly agility. They’re on me like glue and Cara is still open, but I’ve got the shot that will seal our victory.
My triumph is short-lived as one of the midfielders on the other team sweeps the ball out from under my nose and drives it back up the field, striking it down to her offensive line. Our collective breath stops as their striker takes her shot on goal with seconds to spare before the end of the game. If they score, our chances of holding them off in overtime are slim.
The ball flies through the air as our goalie makes a superhuman dive to the right, taking the hit on her right shoulder and deflecting the shot. Relief floods through me as the buzzer sounds, ending the game. High-fiving Kate, I turn to face a furious Jenna.
“What the hell was that?” Jenna hisses.
“What?”
“Out there with Cara. You nearly cost us the game. If it were any player but her, you would have passed the ball, and you know it.”
“I had the shot,” I say, ignoring my sudden surge of anger.
“You didn’t have a shot.”
“We won, didn’t we?”
“That’s not the point, Rissa. We play as a team. And everyone saw what you did out there.”
“No one cares. We won.”
But someone does care. I feel the weight of Coach Fenton’s stare all the way through the handshakes with the other team. He’s not happy that I ignored him, but it was my call on the field. I stand by it. He doesn’t say anything as I raise my chin in a half-defiant gesture and walk past him to hug our ecstatic goalie.
With a twinge, I see that she clutches her right shoulder on contact. “You okay, Sarah?”
“Best case, bruised. Worst case, dislocated. But either way, totally worth it.”
I meet Jenna’s eyes, the question in them clear. Was it?
Shrugging, I turn away and, in the next moment, Sarah and I are both picked up and carried along in a tide of girls toward the sidelines, where the bus is waiting to ferry us all back to school. The cheering is deafening for the ten-minute ride and continues into our own locker room. The only girl with a scowl on her face is Cara, but I refuse to let her ruin this moment for me.
“Nice job, Fighters,” Coach Fenton says after we shower and gather in the middle of the outer room. “That was close, but you did it. You stayed strong and won us the game. And that kind of teamwork is what makes us Fighters.” He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but for the briefest of seconds I feel that the last part of his sentence about teamwork is directed my way. I shake it off as a new wave of cheering and hollering makes its way around the room.
“Have a great weekend, team,” Coach Fenton says. “You deserve it. See you at practice on Monday.”
Grabbing my gym bag on the way out, I join in the whooping as the revelry spills into the hallway. Even with the near-miss, you couldn’t wipe the smiles off everyone’s faces—making it to the semifinals is a huge deal for a prep school that hasn’t been in the Spring Hockey Tournament playoffs for more than a decade. I’d been recruited into the game during my second day as a freshman at Dover Prep. As much as I hate to admit it, I have Cara to thank for that. Back when we used to be friends, we’d been joined at the hip and she’d insisted that we try out together. We’d both made the JV team—she as striker, and me as right forward. To me, it’d been a way to pass the time.
The plain truth is I can’t participate in any competitive water sports, even though swimming is more my thing than hockey. My guardians warned me about that, and at the time I’d yet to figure out what else I might enjoy. Field hockey fit the bill as well as any other sport, and two and a half years later, I’d become quite good.
More than good, a sneaky inner voice whispers. Starting striker on the varsity team as a junior is pretty much unheard of.
I acknowledge it with a smug grin. My natural athleticism isn’t a curse—it’s a gift. As long as I’m careful and don’t draw undue attention to myself, it’s a bonus. And it isn’t like swimming where I can clock a fifty-foot pool in less than ten seconds, almost half the time of the Olympic world record for freestyle, or hold my breath indefinitely.