by Kim Johnson - October 27, 2008

Our last home game is coming up on Tuesday. It’s hard to believe that the season is coming to its last weeks. I wanted to write this particular blog in a dedication to my team and to the hard work we’ve put in this season. A lot has happened since I’ve last written, and I can’t capture all of our glorious and heartbreaking moments. I will try my best to recount the best ones and to let you feel what it’s like to be a part of this amazing team.

A while ago our team “adopted” a young girl named Hailey, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She is a part of a foundation called Friends of Jaclyn that helps other kids in the same unfortunate predicament. We took Hailey in as a part of our team. She’s come to two of our games, and each time she cheers with us and runs to center field with our starters. I love that our team can give her the feeling of being a part of a team activity. I love that she can cheer with us on the bench and that she can feel the excitement and exhilaration of soccer.

Our game against WPI also stands out as one of our defining moments as a team. We came out to that game ready as ever and in the first 30 seconds of the game, WPI came out and scored. Unfazed, we battled back and scored twice before the half. At halftime, we realized that it was still anyone’s game, and we had to really take it to them. Someone said, "let’s get 3 more goals," and that’s exactly what we did. Each time we scored, we all bowed to the goal scorer. Even the girls on the bench paid tribute to the girl who got the goal.

The win that we had over Clark University was one that I won’t forget either. We got the first goal after 24 minutes of hard work. That goal got our moral up, and we kept playing out hearts out. Unfortunately they scored on us before the half. After halftime, it became a battle royal - a fight to the death! It was do or die, and we weren’t about to stop putting our hearts in. It was a long fight, but finally in the middle of the second half, we got the goal that put us in the lead. At that point, our strategy was to defend - Don’t let them turn, and whatever we do, don’t let them shoot. We wanted to run the clock without stalling too much on free kicks and throw-ins, so we tried to kick long balls to the corners where it would take the defense time to collect. That strategy worked for us, and in the last 30 seconds of the game, Yuko Takahashi collected the ball and scored again! It was a glorious win - a fight that we won. That feeling of victory felt SO good!

I think that our team has one of the greatest attitudes I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. Even after the games that we didn’t play our best in and we didn’t win, we were always upbeat. When we lost to Babson College and MIT, we knew that we didn’t play our best. Instead of letting those losses get us too down, we channeled them into improving our play. After those losses, we said, "next time we’ll get it." Sure enough, we have a good chance of being in the playoffs this weekend!

I love being on this team, because I am a part of something that is greater than myself. Though we are very skillful when it comes to playing soccer, we don't feel that we can only be measured by the level that we can play. We are also good sportswomen, who respect our opponents, even when they don’t respect us. We are a family. When any of us are in need, the team is so quick to support. We do so much more than play soccer. We eat together, watch movies together and study together. We win together, lose together, celebrate together and cry together. We are so much more than what a team is defined as, and we are more than what our statistics are. We are in every sense winners, even if we might not win every game. I love this team with every fiber of my being. In fact, it’s one of the things that inspired me to go to Mount Holyoke in the first place. I know that when the season ends, I’ll have post-season blues, but the nice thing is that I’ll still have my team after the season ends.