Sports injuries can be very detrimental to a team. This past season for the girls’ soccer team, their players faced many. Starters such as Ilana Ginsburg, Talia Ginsburg, Jenna Kara, and Alexia Quinn were either injured or forced to play out of position. Although they made it to the Championship, victory was just simply out of reach due to these major setbacks.
When asked “How would the season have actually panned out had you, Lexi, and Jenna been there for the Championship game?”, Talia responded “Honestly, our chances of winning would have greatly increased. The defense was just not at its utmost potential of strength”. Ilana added on to this by saying “I’m not even a goalie. I’ve played soccer my whole life and it just really stinks that my senior year I couldn’t use my talents as a field player”. Both of these girls, however, claim that regardless of the cards that the team was dealt for this season, they are extremely proud and saw great heart and both mental and physical stamina.
From the point of view of Coach Johns, he was most definitely frustrated with all of the injuries, although he obviously knows there was nothing he could do. He claimed, “I was very proud of what the girls did. The underclassmen really had to step up their game and honestly making it to the Championship was a victory in itself considering the circumstances”. Coach Johns wants the fighting spirit of the Lancer girls to carry on through generations of teams to come.
Jenna Kara, a team captain and senior missed every game this season due to a torn ACL. She was arguably the fastest player on the team in previous years and stressed that, “I could have covered many holes on defense that, at times, were open”. Her skills were greatly missed on the field, but the fact that she kept her hopes high for the team and stood proudly on the sidelines was nothing short of admirable.