Early Monday morning, the varsity soccer team received a text message from one of the captains at 6:53 a.m. The players assumed it was about the Hickman game later that night, either it was cancelled or change in time.
But instead, the startling text was hard to read and understand half awake: a forwarded message from senior defensive midfielder Kenzie Jacoby, stating she had gotten in a car wreck over the weekend.
A car had crossed over the median, causing her to swerve and flip her car multiple times. She came away with broken ribs, a broken spine at the t1 transverse process and a re-dislocated shoulder. With these injuries, she will be out of school for at least a week, and will not get to play the rest of her senior soccer season.
Reading these words, senior defender Brett Fuller found it difficult to understand how someone she had just seen on Saturday, healthy and fine, could be so banged up.
“I was just in complete shock. It’s so sad. I’m glad she is alive and safe, but it’s so scary to think we could have lost a teammate,” Fuller said. “Every game played from now on will be played for her.”
Looking at the Hickman game tonight, the varsity team will have to go in without one of its senior players that contributed to all areas of the team, whether it was offense or defense.
“Kenzie is one of our strongest defensive players, and she’s able to play many different positions on the field,” junior midfielder Morgan Bumby said. “Without her, we won’t have as much flexibility because we don’t have as many options coming off the bench. On top of that she’s a great leader, and that’s always something we need to have on and off the field. Even though she can’t play, I know she’ll be with us the whole way, and I just want to win for her and [junior] Aubrie [Cornell].”
Not only is Jacoby out for the season, but the team also lost its starting goalie, Cornell, during the Lindbergh game Saturday, when she broke her leg diving for a ball and a Lindbergh player came running into her knee. Before Jacoby’s accident, the team had already decided to play the Hickman game for Cornell; now it will go to both girls.
It only seemed fitting that the team did a practice full of bonding exercises to grow closer like a family before these events occurred. Though it is a tragedy anytime someone is injured, it created an opportunity for the team to unite into not just a team, but a group of girls that that were all connected with the same goals in mind.
“We were struggling at being a family, but when we lose one, we realize how much we need everyone, and it brought us closer and made us work for others instead of ourselves,” sophomore wing midfielder Haleigh Fancher said.
With the Hickman game tonight at 6:30 p.m., emotions are running high within the team. With the uncertainty of how it will turn out and the loss of two players, the team is more determined to win the game than ever for those girls.
“We play for [Jacoby] tonight,” senior forward Anna Alioto said. “Her and Aubrie. This game is for them.”
By Katrina Fox