[DISCONTINUED] SuperNova | USWNT

7 - Captain

Arriving at the stadium, my nerves were at an all time high. Especially when I finally reached the inside of the arena and saw how huge it was. For the Championship, we were playing on a professional level field. This was also where the USWNT played just last night. That's so hard to even wrap my head around. There were thousands of seats, circling all the way around the field. People in the stands would be watching us from every angle, but, no pressure, right?

"There you are Case-" Riley stooped when she came out of the tunnel and gawked at the stadium. "Holy shit, this place is gigantic." She walked in further and her eyes roamed the ocean of seats. "So many seats..."

I chuckled, "My thoughts exactly." Walking over to my best friend, I placed my arm across her shoulder. "But, it's not like it's gonna be full. Maybe 200 from each side, max." Boy, I had no idea how wrong I was.

"I don't know, though. Maybe having a big crowd would be a good thing. All the energy hyping us up and the fans cheering us on." She looked up, wistfully, as if the whole thing was happening, right now, in her mind.

"Well, that is, if the crowd is cheering for us." I said, trying to be more realistic.

She immediately frowned and I could practically see her daydream disintegrate in front of her eyes. "First of all, way to kill the mood, Debby-downer." She glared at me and I held my hands up in surrender. "And, second of all, you may find this hard to believe, but you are pretty well-known and I guarantee you there will be plenty of people here to cheer you on." I looked over to her and found nothing but honesty in her eyes. It was hard for me to believe that I was anything special, especially because I thought my teammates were incredible players and I didn't see a difference between them and I, but I tried my best to trust my friend.

"If you really think so." I shrugged and looked down at the ground.

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see, I guess." She placed her arm around my waist and led me back through a tunnel. We both made our way to the locker rooms in silence.

-

The team and I had put on our navy blue warmups after the first, of many, pep talks, that I knew coach would give us throughout the night, and we were now getting ready to practice on the field. The other team had shown up about 30 minutes after us and were, apparently, getting ready in their own locker room. We haven't seen the players yet, and, I had to admit, I was pretty nervous. Their team comes from the richest school in our state and they were known for being the best at everything they did, especially soccer. Plus, (sorry to let into stereotypes, but) they were some of the most stuck-up, bratty kids you would ever meet. I really wasn't looking forward to being cussed out and having both my ankles broken. But, Coach told us the best option was to just ignore them and avoid conflict.

I was currently sitting on the bench, lacing up my light blue and black cleats when I heard steps echoing throughout the stadium. Confused, I looked around and saw that people were already showing up to the game. It wasn't even 6 yet, why would people show up this early? I guess maybe they wanted to get good seats or something, but I didn't expect many people to show up anyways.

I tried not to think too much about it as I finished putting my shin guards into place and jogged onto the field. Riley met me in the middle and we began sprinting back and forth across the pitch. We didn't push ourselves, knowing we needed to save our energy for the game, but we did just enough to get our muscles loose and our blood pumping. A few of the other girls joined us, until we started doing some basic passing and ball handling drills. We continued this for a little, waiting for Coach to tell us what to do.

He came over after about 10 minutes of warmups and gathered us into a big huddle. "Alright, girls, listen up. We are going to use every second of these next 45 minutes to work on all of our weaknesses." He explained and he started reading from his clipboard. "We will be practicing keeping possession of the ball, along with corner kicks and penalty kicks." He finished and then started telling us each where to go.

First we practiced keeping possession with some basic ball handling drills. Then, we practiced corner kicks. Each forward took a kick and the rest of the team acted as offense or defense in the box. When I was up for my kick, I took a deep breath a looked at the layout in front of me. I was pretty good at reading and creating plays, so corner kicks were actually one of my strengths. Taking a few steps back, I lined up my shot and then held up my hand, signaling that I was going to kick the ball. When I finally did, it went flying in the air and landed over the head of Riley, one of my 'teammates' in this practice, who was easily able to jump up and use her head to redirect the ball right into the net.

I was satisfied, considering our goalkeeper was pretty talented, and I was the only one able to make anything out of my kick this practice. However, what I heard after was unexpected. Cheers and applause erupted throughout the stadium. I looked around and finally realized that there were, now, quite a bit of people in the stands, watching our practice. It was not long past 6 o'clock, yet there was already a decent sized crowd in the arena. I was growing more and more amazed at the incredible support I had been receiving by the second. I noticed people in the crowd had my number on their jerseys. It was so crazy to see.

"I guess you were right." I said to Riley when she walked up to me, giving me a hug. She backed away and looked into the crowd. Some of them waved at us and I waved back with a smile.

"It's barely even 6:15, wait 'til the game starts." She said excitedly, clearly happy that she was right. I couldn't help but feel excitement too. I had a feeling this was going to be a memorable night.

-

It was currently 6:45 and we were all getting ready in the locker room. Standing in front of my locker, I held my navy blue and white jersey in my hands, running my fingers across the number '15' on the back. Knowing this was the last time I would be wearing this jersey, and, possibly, this number, made me feel a whole swarm of emotions. It was, what I would call, bittersweet. Of course, I was happy and proud that I got to play in the State Championship because I had worked so hard the past four years, on and off the field. But, it was also sad and terrifying that, after this game, I would be hanging up this jersey and moving on to something new. I really didn't know what was to come after tonight, but I knew that I would figure it out and get through it, just like I had done so many times in my life.

"Okay girls, get suited up. It's game time!" Coach yelled and everyone started cheering. I slipped my jersey on over my head and quickly tied my hair up in a ponytail. I was ready to follow Coach into the tunnel and onto the field, but someone held me back.

"Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" I looked back at Taylor and saw the rest of the girls all looking at me with smiles on their faces. I was slightly confused, until I looked down to see a neon blue band in the captain's outstretched hand.

I looked up at her, wide eyed, "No, no, no. I can't take that from you. I'm not a leader and you've always been the captain." I said, still shocked that she would even consider letting me wear the captain's band.

"You can and you will. You are the one who brings this team together and keeps us from falling apart." Taylor told me honestly, further extending her arm towards me. I shook my head still.

"Listen to her, Casey." My best friend butted in. "You inspire this team and if you take that arm band and wear it with pride, the rest of the team will follow suit. We need you, Captain." Riley finished and I sighed when the whole team started cheering 'Captain'.

"Fine." I gave in and let Taylor place the band around my right bicep, on top of my sleeve. "But, only because it matches my cleats." All of the girls laughed and we started our way out of the locker room and into the tunnel, finally ready to play this game.