˗ˏˋOur Differencesˊˎ˗

-18-

We finished the game with a score of 7-9. We lost, unfortunately, but played very hard.

I tried Dylan's left foot tip, and ended up scoring three more times. We didn't win the championship, but the boy's game was still on for tonight. They still had a chance, at least.

I grabbed my soccer bag and went into the stadium with the rest of our team. The boys were warming up on the field. Dylan shot a few goals, and then stood over on the side with Coach Thrash, while everyone else continued practicing.  They were talking about something — probably strategies and whatnot.

"Oh my god, I'm so excited." Mia sat down next to me in the stadium.

"Me too. My family's been hyping up this game since Dylan was a freshman."

I still felt a slight pang in my heart for the fact that they couldn't make it for the game tonight. It's really far away, and barely anybody's parents made the trip, but I think Dylan was still holding out hope that Mom and Dad would show up.

It's his last high school soccer game, after all.

They finished practicing, and team huddled for a few minutes before the game officially started.

Dylan looked extremely prepared for this game as though he'd been waiting for it for his entire life. When I saw Charlie Pinton playing the exact same position as Dylan, I knew this was about to be really good.

I shoved a handful of popcorn into my mouth.My first impression is that Charlie's good. Like, really good. I always remember him being good at soccer, but I guess he got even better when he switched schools. Maybe it was out of spite or something.

Physically, I could see his rage as Dylan outplayed him with ease. He dribbled around Dylan, who slid into the ball from the side, refusing to let it get past him.

He took the ball and moved with it down the field. Charlie aggressively side tackled Dylan, causing the crowd to have a loud reaction.

"Dude!" we all yelled in annoyance.

Everyone in the stadium was pissed, and the referee eventually flagged a yellow card after Charlie cleated Dylan in the back of the shin.

"Yes!" I clapped, as he walked off the field.

Dylan was so pissed. You could see it radiating off of him. The game continued and his rage turned into determination. At least he had a better chance of scoring now that Charlie's off of the field.

He scored from halfway across the field again, and everyone went crazy like they normally do. Without Charlie on the field, the game played out more in our favor.

Devin was playing really well also. I watched him dribble the ball past a bunch of players from the other team, and everyone was cheering, because of how close he was to scoring. Then, he swiftly took a beautiful shot into the goal and made it in.

"Yeah!" me and Mia shouted simultaneously.

Later on in the first half, Charlie was put back in, and that's when the other team started picking up pace a little more. They were a good team, but Charlie basically led them all to victory.

Starkview scored three points within 25 minutes, and we had 3 points also.

Ties were exciting, because our team usually got more excited and started playing harder, so you saw more action. Clearly the same thing goes for Starkview.

There was so much going on in the game that I was having a hard time keeping up. It was close — too close.

The ball was passed to Quinn, and he sprinted past Starkview's left midfielder, who got shoved to the side by him. He kept running with the ball and passed it up to Devin at striker, who was literally dying to score.