Senior Alex Allen is examined after injuring his knee at SM North Stadium on Sept. 7 during a game against Lawrence high school. “I was scared,” Allen said. “Playing at a Division 1 college has been my dream and getting injured was the one thing I didn’t want to happen, knowing it would make that path to my dream even harder.” photo by savannah kelly
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Senior Alex Allen gets consoled by his father during the football game on Sept. 7. Allen tore his ACL and meniscus, which prevents him from playing the rest of this season. Sophomore Jonathan Killeen will take his place as varsity kicker. photo by Brittany Bonsignore
Seniors Alex Allen and Cody Sliva experience the possibility of being out for the rest of the season after the second game.
aying on the field at the second game of the boys’ soccer season, varsity team captain Cody Sliva waited for the trainer to rush over and take a look at his injury, after he was kicked in the leg by a player from the opposing team. “I couldn’t feel my foot, and I thought the worst,” Sliva said, “I thought my foot was broken.” Senior Alex Allen played in the second game of the football season when his injury occurred. “The instant I heard and felt my knee pop, I dropped to the ground in the worst pain I’ve ever felt,” Allen said. “Right away, I knew it was a torn ACL and possibly worse. It was scary.” Allen and Sliva were both rushed to the hospital and were among the estimated 8,000 children in hospital emergency rooms that day because of school sports-related injuries, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The Journal of Athletic Training noted that only 38 percent of school sports injuries occurred during a game. The impact of these injuries affect more than just their high school careers. Allen said all that was going through his mind was, “my future and how this would affect me getting to where I want to be at the college level for football.” Sliva said that he had been talking to colleges about soccer. In the back of his mind, he was wondering how the injury would affect him. “Would I lose scholarships? Would
[recruiters] would stop looking at me?” Allen is currently out for the season and hates his new position on the sidelines. “It kills me inside, but I know my team still needs me for support,” Allen said. “I’ll be at every practice, game and meeting until the end of the season.” He still strives to be a senior leader on the team, and says that he is there for his team “110 percent always, no matter what. And I would do anything for any one of my teammates without hesitation.” As for Sliva, he ended up with a contusion (a bruise on the bone) to his shin. He is already back on the field. If his foot had been broken, he would have been out for the season. “That would have been the scariest part: leaving my senior year in the second game.” Both Sliva and Allen say they have learned something valuable as a result of the injury. “You can’t take anything for granted,” Sliva said. If that was my last game, it wouldn’t have been a good game to end on.” Allen said that, post-injury, he has learned to make the best of everything he does. “[I] enjoy every minute of being healthy,” Allen said, “and [I] take advantage of the fact that I’m even able to play again after surgery.” Like Sliva, Allen said that he doesn’t “take anything for granted, and [I will] work my butt off to get better and stronger than before.”
/ BROOKE COURTNEY + AARON MESSICK
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