“One of them is their goalie,” Andi added.
Jeff had heard none of this. Apparently neither had Arlow.
“Where’d you hear that?” Jeff asked, clearly surprised.
“There’s a website for the conference that some of the parents set up,” Diskin said. “It has the rosters and leading scorers for each team. Of course you wouldn’t know that, Arlow, because that would involve reading something.”
“Well, guess we’re in trouble on Friday then,” Arlow responded, “since they’ve got two girls to our one.”
He jogged off without waiting for an answer.
“Every day around here is just nothing but yucks,” Diskin said. “Between him and the coach, there’s no enjoying anything.”
“Can’t believe he didn’t know about the website,” Andi said. “I figured he’d been on it every night looking for his name.”
“He will now,” Jeff said. “Especially after the three goals today.”
He didn’t mention that he’d be checking the site for the first time that night himself.
Andi was heading for the girls’ locker room. It was the first week in October and, even at five thirty, Jeff could feel a chill in the air. Which reminded him that the Halloween dance was a little more than three weeks away.
He wanted to say something about it to Andi, but she was turning away. And Diskin was standing right there.
Not now, Jeff thought. But soon. Before someone else—like Mike Craig—asked first.
29
Andi was happy to see both her parents waiting for her when she came out of the locker room.
Since her mom wasn’t in the middle of a case, her hours these days were flexible. Her dad’s hours were almost always flexible—which was why he worked at home at night a lot.
“Great win, Andi!” her mom said.
Her dad wasn’t quite as enthusiastic. “Why didn’t you play at all in the second half?” was his opening comment as they walked to the car.
“Dad, we were up by a bunch, and Coach J wanted to play some of the other guys.”
“I didn’t see Ron Arlow come out,” her dad said as he chirped open the car doors.
“You sound like Jeff,” Andi said. “And, by the way, he didn’t play in the second half, either.”
Her father said nothing for a moment as they all climbed into the car.
Just then, Andi’s phone pinged with an incoming text. It was from Jeff.
My dad wants to come to practice tomorrow to do follow-up story. You OK with that?
Andi read the text to her parents.
“What do you think?” she asked. She was wondering if the presence of the TV crew might upset Coach J … again.
“Ask him why his dad wants to follow up,” her father said.
Andi did. The answer returned quickly, and Andi relayed the message: “‘Lots of viewers have apparently asked what’s been happening since you were put on the team’ … Even his bosses!”
When Andi read the answer to her parents, they both nodded, and her dad said, “Sure, do it. I’m betting Coach J will put a positive spin on what’s happened. Might even take credit for being so open-minded.”
They all had a good laugh at that one.
* * *
Tom Michaels and his camera crew were waiting on the practice field the next day when Andi arrived.
“We’re going to talk to your coach first,” he explained. “He said he’d be here at three fifteen—which is one minute from now. That should give us a few minutes to talk to you before practice at three thirty.”
That was fine with Andi. She thought it was a good sign that Coach J had agreed to talk.
Except he didn’t show up at three fifteen. He walked onto the field ten minutes later, and Andi could see him waving Mr. Michaels and the crew away.
“Not now,” he said. “I have a practice to run. I’ll try to make some time when we’re finished.”
Jeff and Danny Diskin were standing next to Andi as they waited for the coaches to walk over to start practice.
They could hear Tom Michaels—clearly upset—talking to Coach Johnston.
“We got out here at three o’clock to set up because you said you wanted to do this before practice,” he said. “What happened to, ‘I’ll be ready to go at three fifteen’?”
“Got tied up, sorry,” Coach Johnston said. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. Your call.”
Now Andi got it. Coach J was hoping Mr. Michaels would get upset and leave without doing the story at all.
“What time is practice over?” the reporter asked.
“Can’t promise an exact time, depends how the kids are feeling,” Coach J said. “Usually around five.”
“We’ll be back,” Mr. Michaels said, and signaled his camera guy to take down the camera and tripod that had been set up. He walked over to where Andi, Jeff, and Danny were standing.
“In my business we call this being slow-played,” he said, not breaking stride because Coach J was whistling the team to the center of the field.
The practice was a difficult one. The usual stretching and calisthenics went longer than usual. Then came fifteen minutes of keep-away with one then two players inside small circles of players. Then there were some ladder sprints—for no apparent reason. Finally, just before four, they split up into teams to scrimmage. Andi, Jeff, and Danny were all back with the second team.
The three of them exchanged a look as they were lining up. They all knew the reason for the punishment.
At about four thirty, Mr. Michaels and his cameraman were back on the sidelines. Andi was relieved. The thought had occurred to her that Coach J might cut practice short so that he’d be gone when they returned.
Since that tactic wasn’t going to work, he dragged the practice on an extra ten minutes and then spent several post-practice minutes reminding them of the importance of Friday’s game. Jeff’s dad’s cameraman had been shooting the last few minutes of practice, and he then videoed the post-practice talk. If Coach J cared, he didn’t show it.
Finally they were dismissed with a reminder that they’d have a short practice on Thursday—mostly drills; not much running—to be fresh for Friday.
As Coach C collected practice balls and other equipment, Coach J walked directly to Mr. Michaels and said, “Ready?”
“Need about two minutes to get the camera set up,” Mr. Michaels said.
“You’ve got one,” Coach J said.
Andi was reminded of something her father had said back in mid-September. “Who does this guy think he is, Bill Belichick?”
Apparently he did.
* * *
When the interview started, Coach Johnston was all smiles and sunshine. He was glad that he’d been ordered to put Andi on the team, he said. She was a good player and—with his encouragement—her teammates had accepted her.
Andi almost choked when she heard that answer.
“Why was Andi on the second team for most of today’s scrimmage?” Mr. Michaels answered.
“We’re going to need all sixteen players to contribute on Friday,” Coach J said. “I wanted to see different players in different roles today. We had an excellent practice.”
He’d been ready for that one.
“What do you think your record would be right now if Andi Carillo wasn’t on your team?” Mr. Michaels asked.
He didn’t seem as prepared for that one. He thought for a moment and then finally said, “It would be two, three, and one.”
“That is your record,” Mr. Michaels said.
“I know,” Coach J said, not even the hint of a smile on his face.
30
The piece ran on Thursday night and was billed as “Tom Michaels’s update on Philadelphia’s feel-good story of the fall.”
In addition to Coach J, Andi, Danny, and Mike were interviewed on camera. Andi kept it upbeat, saying she was thrilled with the way her teammates had accepted her. She didn’t bring up Ron Arlow or his pals. Diskin an
d Craig were both asked what the team’s record would be without Andi.
“We’d be one and five,” Diskin said. “The only game we wouldn’t have lost would have been against Gladwynne.”
Craig took it a step further. “The only game we might have won was Gladwynne,” he said. “Even that wouldn’t be a lock without Andi. And no way do we beat anybody else.”
Jeff wished he’d had the chance to say something like that but, of course, he wasn’t part of the piece.
Wrapping it up on camera, his dad tagged the piece by saying, “Michael, this team’s come a long way since September but still has four games to play. We’ll see how things turn out.”
“We sure will, Tom,” said Barkann back in the studio when he came on camera. “I think we’re all Merion fans right now—and especially Andi Carillo fans.”
* * *
The next day dawned bright, beautiful and chilly—a perfect October day for football—and, Jeff thought—for soccer.
Everyone was quieter than usual during warm-ups. There was little of the rah-rahing that normally went on prior to a game. It was as if the players had taken Coach J’s words to heart about the importance of what was to come and the quality of the opponent.
Cynwyd did have two girls on the team. Jeff had figured out how to find the conference website and had learned that Patrice Merkens was the goalie and Carla Hastings not only played forward but was also the team’s leading scorer with six goals and six assists.
She was impossible not to miss in warm-ups: She was very tall, and her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Diskin walked over to Jeff during a lull, hands on hips. “If you can’t get Andi to go to the dance with you, I’ll ask her,” he said.
Jeff had made the mistake of telling Danny he was thinking about asking Andi to the Halloween dance. Now, he regretted it. On the other hand, Danny wasn’t wrong.
Coach J started the same lineup as he had started in the previous two games. It was one thing to play mind games in practice, but with the season at stake, he couldn’t afford to not have his best lineup on the field. So Jeff and Andi were on the field from the get-go.
Both teams were cautious in the first few minutes, no one wanting to make the first mistake. Unfortunately, it was Jeff who made the first one.
Trying to move the ball past midfield, he thought he spotted Zack Roth open to his right. But he hadn’t noticed one of the Cynwyd defenders sneaking up from his left-back position. The defender darted in front of Roth to intercept Jeff’s pass and took off in full flight with the ball.
Everyone on the Merion side had been going forward. Now, they were caught flat-footed as the defender pushed way ahead. Jeff tried to scramble back to cut him off, but just as he closed on him, the back-turned-forward crossed the ball to Hastings, who was unmarked with Merion’s defenders trying to keep the ball away from the other two forwards who were both in the penalty area.
Hastings reached up with her left foot to knock the pass down, gathered it, closed in on the penalty area, and before any defender could make a move at her, blasted a right-footed shot that flew over Bobby Woodward’s dive and found the left corner of the net.
Jeff stopped running and stared for a moment. It was easily the most impressive goal he’d seen all season, a play worthy of a pro—seriously, he thought, a Philly Union player would have been proud of that shot. It was hard to believe that Hastings was a sixth grader.
The Cynwyd players raced to celebrate with Hastings. Jeff glanced at the scoreboard: Twelve minutes were left in the half and Cynwyd led 1–0. He mentally kicked himself for the mistake.
He was still shaking his head when he heard the voice of the referee.
“Hey, number ten!” he said, and tilted his head in the direction of the sideline.
Coach C, who signaled subs into the game, was holding up a large piece of cardboard with the number ten on it. That meant Merion was subbing and the player coming out was Jeff.
“Keep your head up,” Coach C said to Jeff as he came off and Mark Adkins went in to the game in Jeff’s place. “You’ll be back in soon.”
Coach J wasn’t as encouraging. “How could you not see the defender sneaking up like that?”
“Sorry, Coach,” was all Jeff could say in response. He knew Coach J was right—he’d made a mistake. But Cynwyd’s players had made a terrific play to create the goal.
The rest of the half was scoreless, although Arlow beat the Cynwyd goalie with a shot from the left side of the box only to watch it ricochet off the goalpost and bounce away harmlessly.
Apparently Coach C’s definition of “soon” was different than Jeff’s, because he didn’t play the rest of the half. At halftime, Coach J told the three starters—Jeff included—who had come out at different points during the first half that they were back in the game to start the second half.
“No mistakes!” he said, looking directly at Jeff. “They’ll make one sooner or later. Next time Ron gets an open shot, I’m sure he’ll bury it.”
It wasn’t Ron who got the first open shot in the second half—it was Jeff. About ten minutes in, he noticed the same Cynwyd defender sneaking up again, apparently intent on stealing another pass from him. For some reason, a quote from a famous basketball coach popped into his head—“I may be dumb, but I ain’t stupid”—as a pass from Diskin landed at his feet near midfield. The same defender was creeping toward Roth, who at that moment appeared open. Jeff held on to the ball and then, as the defender got a little closer to Roth, yelled, “Zack!” and made a move as if to pass it to him. The defender charged at Roth but instead of passing, Jeff raced directly into the hole the defender had vacated to run at Roth.
He had two steps on the guy, and the Cynwyd midfielders were scrambling to get back. Jeff moved into the offensive area with a four-on-two break—Andi left, Arlow middle, and Craig right.
He waited for another defender to come and stop the ball—that was the cardinal rule of defense in soccer, as in basketball: Stop the ball first.
But no one came toward him. One defender stayed with Andi, another with Arlow, while the goalie leaned to her left to get an angle on Craig, figuring the ball would go to the open player.
Still unmarked, Jeff crossed into the penalty area. He looked at Craig for a moment, and when he saw the goalie make a move in his teammate’s direction, he took another step in the direction of the goal. Reminding himself not to try to kill the ball as he tended to do when shooting, he unleashed a shot aimed at the right corner.
The shot was perfect; the goalie had no chance to get back. The ball hit the back of the net for Jeff’s first goal of the season. More important, it was Merion’s first goal of the game, and it tied the score.
Jeff threw his arms in the air while Andi and Craig raced to congratulate him. Arlow was slower getting there but put his hand up for a high five.
“You gave them a goal, now you got us one,” he said. “Nice recovery.”
That was as close to a compliment as Arlow had in him. Good enough, Jeff figured. He ran back upfield and glanced at the scoreboard. The clock had just ticked under fifteen minutes.
31
Not much happened in the next ten minutes. For a while it appeared that both teams were content to play for a tie. It occurred to Andi as the clock wound down that a tie would keep Cynwyd’s chances to win the conference alive but would probably doom Merion.
That would explain why both her coaches kept yelling, “Push up, push up!” at their players. Andi knew they were right.
When a Cynwyd shot from long range flew over Bobby Woodward’s head and over the goal, the official blew his whistle to indicate that both teams wanted to sub. Coach J took Mark Adkins out and replaced him with Allan Isidro, who was probably the slowest player on the team, but also had the strongest leg. It wasn’t an accurate leg, which was why Isidro played midfield. At his best, Isidro might be able to set one of the forwards up with a long pass.
While the subs were being whistle
d in, Andi ran over to Arlow and waved a hand at Craig, Roth, and Jeff. All three saw her and hustled over.
“We can’t tie!” she said. “It’s not good enough if we want a chance to win conference. We have to gamble!”
“We know that, Carillo,” Arlow snapped.
“Shut up, Arlow; she’s right,” Craig said. “You better be ready. We’ve got to score.”
Arlow was about to say something in response, but the whistle blew and they all ran back to their positions as Woodward prepared to put the ball back in play.
Andi noticed that Cynwyd clearly didn’t want a tie, either. Even though it wouldn’t doom them, it would damage them. Plus, they no doubt thought they should win.
Roth had just lost the ball trying to push it into the offensive zone, and Cynwyd was on the attack—all three forwards and all four midfielders pushing forward. The midfielder who had taken the ball from Roth had quickly passed the ball to Carla Hastings, who had come back to get the pass and now began roaring down the left side.
Cynwyd had numbers: Roth was behind the play after losing the ball and so was Isidro for the simple reason that he was slow. Andi made a split-second decision and sprinted as fast as she could straight at Hastings. She had the advantage of not being slowed by dribbling the ball.
Hastings was moving into position to either set someone up or attack the goal herself. Merion’s defenders were cautiously staying back, afraid, no doubt, that Hastings would use her quickness to get past them.
Andi ran in a straight line at Hastings as she prepared to make a decision on what play to make. She wasn’t even looking at her when she slid, feetfirst, directly at the ball.
She felt the ball thump off her hip and saw it roll away. Then, she felt a foot slam into her head. She cried out in pain and rolled over, holding the spot where the kick had landed.
She didn’t know it, but the loose ball had been scooped up by Bobby Woodward as it rolled away from Hastings—thanks to Andi’s steal. She heard the whistle and, as she lay on her back, eyes closed, she heard a voice say, “Don’t move; don’t try to get up.”
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