“90 minutes” by Will Rutola

It's the first day of spring break, a Saturday. I am in Las Vegas with Hawaii Soccer Academy participating in the Player's Showcase tournament where scouts from across the nation are watching. However, this story starts a few months back. It is December of 2022 and my coach emails me and two of my teammates with an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. My two teammates and I had been invited to play in a tournament called the Player's Showcase with another team from Hawaii called Hawaii Soccer Academy, or HSA. I had never guest played for another team before so I knew that this was going to be an unforgettable experience for me. Fast forward to the Friday of spring break, our first game. We play a team called Laguna United FC, and we find out that this team is ranked #2 in Southern California so we go into this game very scared. However, we pull out a tie and we are confident going into the next two days of games that we need to win. Now, it is Saturday and we have two games today. Our first game is at 8 in the morning so we all get up out of our hotel early, around 6 am. Matched up against another California team we start warming up and getting ready for the game. We fight hard throughout and in the end, we tie 1-1. This meant that we needed to win the night game on Saturday if we wanted a chance at winning the tournament. It is now nighttime, game time. A must-win game is upon us, and we are matched up against New Mexico Soccer Academy. The game starts and we are even at 0-0 for at least 40 minutes until we get scored on once right before half. Our confidence drops tremendously going into halftime. Our coach has some strong words for us and reiterates the idea of duration to us, soccer is a game of duration, and whoever can play the best throughout the full 90 minutes will be the winner. Duration is something that our coach had been preaching to us over every team meeting we had in the past two days. Now, going into the second half, there are 45 minutes left to play and we walk in with a great mentality. We know we deserve to win this game. I take a moment to take in the atmosphere, awesome field, dark out, lights on, great weather, with friends, it's my time. 5 minutes into the second half, one of my teammates dribbles through a few defenders, crosses it across the face of the goal and it is put in the back of the net by another teammate. At this point, we are soaring, we are tied 1-1, we are dominating. another 35 minutes go past, and a fight breaks out. I slide tackled one of the opponents and got the ball and then his foot. The kid started to yell and cry to the ref who ended up giving me a yellow card. It is now the 85th minute and we need to win this game to have a chance at winning. Our defense wins the ball off of the free kick and blasts it down the field. Our striker, Jadyn, dribbles a few defenders and tried to get a shot off; however, it is blocked by their defense and the ball falls to me. I take a touch to my right, setting myself up for a right-footed shot. A defender lungs towards my right so I pull the ball back and touch it forward to the left. I then cock my left foot back and shoot with all the power I have. The ball deflects off a defender and falls in the bottom left corner of the net out of the reach of the keeper. We had won the game with that kick, and in celebration, everyone piled on top of each other and we celebrated in front of the New Mexico bench.