Benchwarmers

by John Feinstein

  He paused, thinking. “And the next time Ron Arlow says or does something stupid—no matter who it’s directed at—bench him. Send him—and the other players—a message that treating other people badly won’t be tolerated. Like you said, we’re playing for fun.”

  Johnston took a sip of his wine and picked up a pickle and began cutting it up.

  “I’ll say one thing about you, Jason. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

  Jason smiled. “I have no choice,” he said. “I have teenagers.”

  * * *

  When Jeff arrived at the locker room door the next afternoon, he found Andi sitting on the bench outside the door, already in uniform.

  “You need me to go inside and check the lineup?” he asked.

  She shook her head and smiled. “Nope,” she said. “Coach C already told me. I’m starting up front with Arlow and Mike Craig. And you’re starting at midfield.”

  Jeff almost felt like dancing for joy. Finally! he thought.

  He had another question.

  “Diskin?” he asked.

  “Starting, too,” she said.

  Jeff punched a fist in the air and said, “I better get moving.”

  Andi stopped him, putting a hand on his elbow. “Just for the record, I haven’t said this before, but you deserve this, too.”

  “Thanks,” he said, figuring he was grinning like it was Christmas morning.

  He walked into the locker room and, naturally, the first person he saw was Ron Arlow. He braced, waiting for the verbal attack.

  “Come on, Michaels, hustle up and get dressed,” Arlow said. “We’ve got a game to win.”

  Jeff had no answer for that. He walked to his locker, took his uniform out, and started putting it on. Danny Diskin walked over.

  “You saw the lineup?” he said.

  Jeff nodded.

  “We’ve got a chance now,” Danny said. “I talked to Coach C. He said everyone plays, but the coaches are going to keep the best lineup on the field all day—including Andi.”

  “What do you think happened?” Jeff said. “I mean, Coach J said Friday he hadn’t done a good job, but he didn’t commit to anything yesterday other than playing three forwards.”

  Danny shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it was like he said, he realized he wasn’t doing a good job. Maybe Coach Crist talked some sense into him.”

  “Or maybe he just got tired of losing,” Jeff said.

  Danny smiled. “Well, that’s something I think we can all agree on. Even Arlow.”

  Jeff knew Danny was right. Everyone was tired of losing. Even Arlow.

  26

  Right from the start that afternoon, Merion was a different team.

  Sure, it was partly the lineup change. But it was also the attitude.

  Every Merion player—including Ron Arlow—seemed to have an extra bounce in his or her step; seemed to have an extra gear to get to loose balls; seemed to have an enthusiasm that no one watching them play had seen in their first four games.

  It was as if they had invisible jet packs inside their uniforms.

  The Malvern players were caught off guard. All they knew about Merion was that they were three-time losers and had gotten shut out the previous Friday by a Main Line team that Malvern had beaten 4–0 in their conference opener.

  For the first time all season, Merion scored the first goal of the game. It came when Zack Roth took off on a run down the right side and fed the ball to Arlow, sprinting up the middle of the field.

  Arlow was Merion’s fastest player, and he was behind the Malvern midfielders in an instant, fast enough to go by them, skilled enough to keep the ball on his foot as he did.

  As the defenders tried to close on him, he faked as if to pass to Craig on the right and then dished to Andi, who was closing from the left side.

  Andi one-timed the ball—not bothering to stop it with her foot but booting it as soon as it arrived. Malvern’s goalie never even moved because the ball was past him so quickly.

  Five minutes in, Merion led.

  Andi ran straight to Arlow, pointing her finger and saying, “Great pass, Ron! Great pass!”

  “Amazing shot,” Arlow said, and, for the first time all season, the two of them exchanged a hand slap.

  The goal seemed to get Malvern’s attention. The game settled into a two-way battle, both teams making runs into the offensive zone, both defenses coming up with answers.

  Then, with a little more than a minute left in the first half, Jeff made a steal at midfield and, seeing Andi open on the left, got her the ball. Andi streaked into the penalty area and was about to pass the ball to Arlow when she was taken down—hard—by a Malvern defender.

  The referee raced in waving a yellow card and pointing to the penalty spot. Several Merion players charged the Malvern defender, who had also tumbled to the ground.

  “My bad,” he said, getting to his feet. “Honest.”

  He put out his hand. Andi accepted it. Everyone in Merion blue-and-gold pulled up.

  “Just watch what you’re doing,” Mike Craig said.

  The Malvern defender nodded. “Just trying to stop her from scoring, guys,” he said. “Not easy, you know.”

  Jeff saw Craig and Andi smile at the comment. The referee had picked the ball up and placed it on the penalty spot.

  “Okay, Merion,” he said. “Who’s taking this?”

  Everyone looked at one another. This was the first penalty kick they’d been awarded all season.

  “Andi should take it,” Craig said. “She’s the one who got taken down.”

  Andi shook her head. “Ron’s got the strongest leg,” she said. “Let him take it.”

  The clock was under twenty seconds. If they didn’t get the kick off by the time it hit zero, they’d lose it.

  From the sidelines, Coach J was yelling. “Someone take the kick! Arlow, you’re the captain, decide!”

  “Andi, take it,” Arlow said.

  The referee was lining up the players on both teams. The clock ticked under ten seconds. No time to argue anymore.

  Andi lined up. The referee blew the whistle. Andi kicked the ball at the exact spot where the goalie had been standing. He had taken a dive to his left, anticipating her lefty kick going in that direction. The ball hit the net as the clock hit zero.

  It was 2–0, and Andi had scored both goals.

  They raced to the sideline—almost as one—for the halftime break. This, Jeff thought, is fun.

  * * *

  The second half wasn’t without nervous moments.

  Malvern made some adjustments and became much more aggressive, taking chances by pushing extra players into the offensive zone. As a result, Merion had some chances with odd-man rushes but couldn’t convert.

  Malvern finally broke through on a corner kick. The ball was kicked into the goal area, and a scramble for it ensued. Somehow it ended up on the foot of one of the Malvern players who was wide-open. He kicked it into an open corner of the net, and with ten minutes still left, the margin was 2–1.

  “We’ve got to stay aggressive,” Coach J said as they were lining up for the kickoff. “Don’t let them back us up.”

  He pointed at Jeff. “Michaels, you get a chance to move up, you take it.”

  Andi and Jeff had played almost the entire game—rested, as was required by the rules, for five minutes apiece early in the second half.

  Coach J’s strategy paid off. With Malvern pressing for the tying goal, Bobby Woodward made a save on a weak shot and quickly threw the ball up the sideline to Jeff, who took off, pushing up with the ball so he became—in essence—a fourth forward.

  The Malvern midfielders scrambled to get back, but Jeff had enough speed to get past them and pass the ball to Craig, who moved to the middle of the field and was about to tee up a shot when Arlow screamed, “Mike—Andi!”

  Craig looked up and saw her cutting in from the left side completely unchecked. The defense had crowded the middle of the
goal area and had, for an instant, forgotten about her. Craig slid the ball to the left winger, and she blasted it as soon as it arrived on her foot. The goalie actually guessed right and got a hand on the ball, but he couldn’t stop it, and it deflected off his hand into the top of the goal.

  All four Merion players who had been involved in the play had their arms in the air, and they raced into a group scrum while the rest of the team came up the field to join the celebration.

  “Great pass!” Andi said, hugging Craig.

  “Great eyes by Ron!” Craig replied.

  Andi turned to Arlow, and they hugged—sort of—each throwing one arm around the other.

  Jeff loved the entire thing—except maybe for the Andi-Craig hug. He understood it, but, being honest, he could have lived without it.

  After all, he had started the play. Just then, Andi spotted him and gave him a hug, too. That was at least as cool as the goal.

  27

  The third Merion goal deflated Malvern. With under six minutes to go, the chances they could score twice weren’t great, and their players knew it. The aggressive runs up the field that had helped them chop the lead in half all but disappeared. When Merion got the ball, the players were content to pass it back and forth, even if they weren’t attacking the goal.

  Neither team came close to scoring in the closing five minutes, and the final was 3–1. Finally, Andi thought, we actually won a game.

  The celebration was pretty raucous. Even the coaches took part, high-fiving each player with Coach C saying repeatedly, “That’s the kind of soccer we want to play.”

  Ron Arlow and his buddy Mark Adkins gave Andi fist bumps, and Adkins said, “Nice playing, Carillo.”

  Arlow settled for the fist bump without comment. That was fine with Andi. He had already come a long way in his approach to her.

  Their record was now 1–3–1 overall, but more important, they were 1–1–1 in conference play. That meant if they could continue to play this way they might still have a chance to win the conference championship. Malvern had been undefeated coming into the game. There had been only one other unbeaten untied team—that was King of Prussia–North—and Andi knew that Merion wouldn’t play them until the last game of the season.

  They went through the handshake line, the Malvern players still appearing to be a little bit shocked by the outcome.

  Andi felt very good about things as they all walked off the field. She was surprised when Arlow jogged up and walked beside her.

  “You got a minute?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, sensing a big moment.

  They walked in the direction of the girls’ locker room to put some space between them and the rest of the players. Andi noticed Jeff pausing to see what was up but waved at him to keep going.

  He waved back and turned toward the boys’ locker room, glancing over his shoulder. Arlow waited until he reached the steps and started down them.

  “Look, I want to be clear on where you and I stand because we’re the two best players on this team,” he said.

  Not exactly modest, Andi thought, but okay.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to help us win, and if that means passing the ball to you when you’re open or crediting you when you make a good pass, I’m okay with that.”

  Andi felt a but line coming. She was right.

  “But I don’t want you to think that means I feel any different about a girl being on a guys’ team than I did during tryouts. And don’t think Coach feels different, either. He’s just accepted that, like it or not, we’re better with you on the field. I’ve accepted that, too. But my boys Mark and Ethan got benched today because Coach started you and Michaels.”

  “Jeff deserved to start,” Andi said, feeling herself get angry.

  Arlow waved a hand. “Maybe,” he said. “And I know you deserved to start. I’m telling you I get that. But I’m still loyal to Mark and Ethan, and I don’t feel good that they aren’t starting. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to do everything I can do to win no matter who’s on the field. But let’s not confuse being teammates with me being a cheerleader in the Andi Carillo Fan Club or asking you to the Halloween dance, which about half the guys on the team including your boyfriend Jeff probably want to do. You got that?”

  Halloween dance? Where had that come from?

  Andi gave him her best smile. “Ron, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.

  If Arlow picked up on her sarcasm, Andi didn’t stick around to find out. She turned and walked away.

  * * *

  “Why do you think he let you take the penalty shot today?” Jeff was saying on the phone that night. Andi had called him because she figured he should know what Arlow had said.

  Andi had thought about that while showering. “We were up by a goal and I think he thought I’d make it. But if I’d missed, then it would have made me look bad. If he takes it and misses…”

  “Right,” Jeff said. “You make it, we’re up two–nil, and he looks like the good guy for giving you the kick. You miss and he’s still the good guy, but you have to deal with the embarrassment of missing.”

  There was a long pause. Andi wanted to say something about the dance—which was the week after the season ended. She hadn’t really given it much thought until Arlow had brought it up after the game.

  What if Ron was right? The last thing she wanted was some stupid dance becoming a thing between her and Jeff.

  She would worry about that later. There was still plenty of soccer season left.

  28

  There was no game Friday because they had a bye, but in practice before their next game the following Tuesday, Coach J didn’t mention to the team that their opponent, Gladwynne, was winless and had scored a total of two goals. That came up later, after Merion had thrashed Gladwynne 5–0 in a game in which all sixteen players got to play at least a half.

  Gladwynne, Jeff noticed early, didn’t even have a full complement of players. When the game began, there were only two players in uniform on the sideline in addition to the eleven starters. They had one player who looked like he’d played soccer before: one of their midfielders, who could control the ball well and get past defenders. But once he gave up the ball, none of his teammates had much of a clue what to do with it.

  Arlow scored a hat trick—three goals, just as Andi had done against Malvern. Jeff knew the phrase from going to hockey games with his dad. When one of the Flyers scored three goals, all sorts of hats would appear on the ice, tossed from the stands. Jeff had no idea where they came from—he never really noticed anyone wearing a hat—but they magically appeared.

  Jeff’s dad explained to him that this was an old-time hockey tradition that actually had started in cricket—the British version of baseball—when a batter took three straight wickets. Jeff had no clue what that meant, but his dad explained that when someone took three straight—apparently a rare occurrence—he was presented with a hat. This led to hockey fans tossing hats onto the ice in honor of three goals and, later, three goals in soccer being called a hat trick for the same reason.

  It was rare in hockey and even more rare in soccer, especially at the professional level, where three goals total in a game was often considered a lot.

  No one threw any hats at Arlow, but he was clearly pleased with having accomplished the feat. Roth scored a goal, and so did Diskin—coming up from midfield—his first of the season. Andi had two assists in the first half, which ended with Merion up by four. Then she and Jeff sat out the entire second half.

  “Home sweet home,” Jeff said with a grin as they sat and watched.

  Andi shrugged. “We’re not needed,” she said.

  Jeff nodded. “But Arlow’s still out there. Roth, too.”

  “I know,” Andi said. “But we’re winning, and you and I are starting. That’s a long way from where we were a few weeks ago.”

  * * *

  It was after the handshakes that Coach J let the players know how unimpressed he was with
their impressive victory.

  “That’s the weakest team we’re going to face,” he said. “I’m sure you all figured that out pretty quickly. They aren’t going to win a game. I was happy with the way you took control of the game quickly, but the fact is if we kept playing for another hour, they probably wouldn’t have scored. So enjoy the win. There’s an old saying in sports that you never throw one back. We’ll take it.

  “But Friday we’re going to play at Cynwyd.” He held up his phone. “I just got a text from their coach telling me they beat Malvern today. That means they’ve got the same record as us and they beat a team we surprised last week.”

  He paused. “Their best player missed their first two conference games because he was hurt—that’s probably why they lost badly to King of Prussia–North. He’s back now, and they will probably be the best team we’ve faced, at least in conference, so far.

  “But we’re also a lot better team now than we were at the beginning of the season. We win this game and we’ll put ourselves in position to have a chance to win the conference. We lose, well, we’re out of it. So come to practice tomorrow prepared to really get after it. We’ll need to play our best game of the season on Friday.”

  He turned, started to walk away, then thought of something and came back. “Good win today. Ron, get ’em in for a cheer.”

  Arlow did as he was told, and Jeff found Andi and Diskin walking off the field.

  “He’s just full of joy, isn’t he?” he said.

  Andi smiled her smile. “He’s not wrong,” she said. “That really wasn’t a very good team, was it?”

  “They could have used a couple of girls, huh?”

  Jeff looked behind them and saw Arlow jogging up.

  “Actually, they probably could have used a couple of girls—especially if they were half as good as Andi,” Diskin said. “I hear that Cynwyd has two girls and they’re both really good.”