The night Katie has been dreading for the past week is finally here with Enloe’s trip back to the Athens Drive stadium to meet Cardinal Gibbons and not just because Cardinal Gibbons fields a side that could probably beat a fair heap of professional and college teams.
Enloe’s starting lineup would be a wee bit different tonight with Miss Delani’s goalie jersey being occupied by someone a fair bit shorter.
Tonight was Katie’s debut in net in relief of Miss Delani who has been in the crease every other game and had a concert the night before and didn’t feel she would recover in time to give the Eagles her best.
To be sure, Katie has played goal in football and wasn’t a real fan of the position. But when her team asked for volunteers to take a turn in the shooting gallery…she raised her hand and then spent the next week training as much as she could including an extra session with Nick and Miss Cameron on Sunday afternoon.
She may not have been thrilled at the prospect but she stepped up and that’s quintessentially Katie. She’s not afraid of stepping in and doing what needs to be done.
The first few minutes were a bit harrowing for her with the Cardinal Gibbons onslaught being pretty much constant and relentless. They’re a heck of a side and it shows and the defence did the best they could to protect Katie’s crease.
Her first save came about four or five minutes into the first half and that got the Eagle faithful in the stands out of their seats and yelling very loud. The first half would see her make a couple more saves but none more spectacular than the one literally in the dying seconds of the half where a Gibbons player had broken through the defence and was completely unmarked coming at Katie who didn’t hesitate in standing her ground and saving an almost certain goal which she deflected wide of the crease. She had some bad luck in that the Gibbons girls were able to quickly recover the ball and she couldn’t save the second shot which went in with 1s remaining on the clock.
But that save she had was *EPIC* and her team appreciated her effort!
The second half was rather a blur where there were nowhere near as many shots on Katie and she’d make the occasional save on the shots that did come her way as Gibbons clearly took their foot off the gas. At that point, the final horn couldn’t come quick enough for Katie and when it did, every last Enloe player went out and mobbed her on the field before it was time to hurriedly get into position for the traditional handshake.
You’d have thought those girls had won the Cup.
There is one picture in particular toward the end of the set where they are walking off the field toward their bench that you could hear in the sudden quiet a very loudly yelled “Kathryn…I’m so freakin’ proud of you!”. They could probably have heard that three counties away. Trust me, you’ll know the picture when you see it. 🙂
Miss Caroline (one of the seniors and Alex’s favourite amongst the volunteers in his Unify club) overheard an opposing coach after one of the more lopsided games of the season say this of the team:
Yes, we won the game but look over there. See how they are celebrating and supporting one another? They are the winners tonight! Enloe girls.
That could well have been this particular fixture the way the girls rallied round Katie who had one heck of a baptism by fire in the nets. She’s fine if she doesn’t go back into net anytime soon but even she said that if they needed her, she would.
How can you not love that girl?
As we were leaving, the Cardinal Gibbons girls were very complimentary as were their parents. One of their players was celebrating her birthday and Katie got one of the treats right before we pulled out to raid the Chick Fil-A (and the corresponding “Chick Fil-Audit” will be coming soon…trying to catch up on the writing now that tax return season is done!).
