Orange Tiger Finds Its Claws

Everyone gathered on the elementary school fields on Tuesday expected to see what they always see from the Light Blue team. It’s the same thing they’ve seen twice a week since August, the same thing that’s made them a dominant force in the Williamstown Youth Center First and Second Grade Soccer League dating all the way back to last spring. They expected to see Brady and Eli, weaving across the field almost at will, leaving collapsed and bewildered defenders in their wake and running up the score on the usually scrappy, but often disorganized, Orange Tigers.

The first twenty minutes of the thirty-minute tilt gave little reason to doubt that this would be the outcome. The Tigers, led as always by their rangy midfielder, Henry, were energetic, but uncentered; Brady and Eli swarmed around the net mercilessly, picking off errant attempts to clear the ball and firing them back on the goal. A steady series of substitutions at goaltender kept the orange team from being blown out, but at the twenty minute mark, the Tigers looked resigned to their fate. Q, the speedy defensive specialist currently taking a turn in net, had just been beaten for Light Blue’s second goal of the game on a gorgeous, sliding shot by Brady that sent Eli’s tackle-defying pass into the far corner of the goal. Jacob Allen, the Tigers’ most cerebral player, was cool as always, but grimaced and stalked off, hands on hips; Henry tossed his own hands in the air in disgust and marched to midfield as Light Blue jumped and danced for the second time, and surely not the last. The Tigers hadn’t even crossed midfield more than twice in the game, and nothing looked likely to change in the final minutes.

That’s when Coach Cody, the high school volunteer, made a change. Q moved out of goal and onto the sidelines, and the new kid, Casey, trotted out to take his place. Casey hadn’t shown much so far in the contest: little control on his kicks, little skill at handling the ball, not much speed. Q sat down in the grass on the sideline; Jacob Allen moved out to the wing, and Chris Shand dropped back to defend. “You kind of have to shift them around some,” said Coach Cody after the game. “It’s pretty random.”

Random like a fox.

Chris Shand, once relieved of the ball-handling duties that had perplexed him on the wing, took to defending like a fish to water, tackling the ball away from both Brady and Eli in the early going and booting it deep into the Light Blue end of the field, freed now from any need to put some touch on the ball.

“I like to kick it far,” Chris told reporters after the game. “It goes far.”

Light Blue tried everything to get past him – no team in the league passes as well as this one, and soon even Chris had a hard time keeping up. (“I’m tired,” he told reporters at the post-game briefing. “I want to go home.”) And eventually, as they have all season long, Light Blue succeeded in getting past the last defender once more, leaving only the goalie.

None could have guessed that Casey, the unassuming, nondescript six-year-old from Southworth Street, had arrived at the Williamstown Youth Center League with a birth defect. It was simply this: He was born without fear. Casey stole the ball away from the flashing cleats first of Eli, then of Brady, making spectacular, diving saves that left the sidelines cheering and the Light Blue team shaking its head in sudden bewilderment. Knees to the ribs, cleats on his hands, collapsing offensive players crushing every other part of him as he cradled the ball – nothing could wipe the contented smile off the new kid’s face.

And the cheering began to infect the Tigers with something they hadn’t felt in a while: Confidence, perhaps? Or, at the very least: Hope. The stifling defense for which they’ve often been known suddenly popped back to life. Sam Edge, all but forgotten for the first twenty minutes, began to put his trademark slide tackles to efficient use, popping the ball back across midfield with a regularity that brought wonderment from the crowd – as well as an admonition to keep his feet from Assistant Coach David Edge. Light Blue found itself going farther and farther into its own end to recover the clearing kicks that the energized Tigers were firing with increasing determination.

On the sidelines, a conference of sorts was happening between Q and itinerant assistant coach Joe Johnson. Sideline cameras caught some of the exchange:

“Q, look, see how Orange are all on defense? They’re crowded around the net, just trying not to let them score. Nobody’s on offense. But you’re down, 2-0. The Orange Tiger has got to get some goals. You know what I think? I think, when you go back in, your team needs you to be aggressive. Somebody’s got to get a goal here for the Tiger. I think it should be you.”

It was hard to tell from Q’s face whether the strategy was sinking in. He remained where he sat, cross-legged, hands on his chin, watching, inscrutable. And with five minutes to go in the game, Coach Cody called his name and sent him up to play midfield while the exhausted Henry fell back to defend.

As each Tiger dropped into his new position, you could almost hear a muffled, distant “Click!” It snapped through the crisp October air like the welcome crack of a long-suffering back. All the pieces, which had been on the board for months to little effect, were suddenly in place. As Light Blue was about to find out, Team Orange had found its identity.

Eli attacked the right side, but Henry and Sam Edge were an impenetrable wall. Eli tried to dribble through, but Henry denied him; he tried to go back they way he’d come, but Sam Edge knocked the ball away with a clean slide tackle that popped it right into the path of the oncoming Q, who already seemed to be going full speed. But when the ball hit his feet, he found another gear. And he wasted no time.

Q cleared the confusion with a quick boot to his right and a cut back to his left, past a surprised and off-balance Brady, who suddenly found himself outgunned in the speed department. Streaking from left to center, Q crossed midfield and made straight for the goal, Brady and now Eli recovering, moving up to try to cut him down. Fighting through a clutching Jacob Fink, Q closed to within five meters of the goal, gathered himself, and fired a bullet that caught goalkeeper Theo’s outstretched fingertips and glanced slightly upward - and into the back of the net. With one determined defensive effort, one deft pass, and one headlong yet somehow perfectly-controlled sprint, the Orange Tiger was back. What had looked like a blowout was now merely 2-1.

The celebration was furious, but measured – wide-eyed and bouncing, the Tiger gathered itself on its own end and waited for Light Blue – dared them – to put it in play again.

Brady, always unflappable, brought the ball forward, deciding to do as he’d done so many times before: take the bull by the horns. If anyone could carry this team to victory single-handedly, it was going to be Brady. And on he came.

From the way they ran, it would have been easy to assume that Q had handcuffed himself to Brady. First right, then left, from one sideline to another and finally down toward the corner, the suddenly inspired Q stuck with one of the best ball-handlers in northwestern Berkshire County like ugly on an ape, never losing sight of the ball and never giving up when a move found a crack in his defenses. Q has the speed to recover from most mistakes, and on this day, he had forgotten he even had brakes. “I ran really fast,” a still-excited Q told reporters after the game. “I think I’m almost as fast as kids in third grade. I’m faster than one kid in fourth grade. I beat him in a race one time.”

By the time Brady fired a crossing pass out to the middle, hoping to make something of his up-to-now frustrated run, the rest of the Orange Tiger had collapsed on him, and there was little hope his pass could find a friendly foot. Indeed, it found instead the ready instep of Jacob Allen, who advanced methodically down the right sideline and found Beau James across midfield, who turned and centered the ball…

…to Q. Somehow, some way, Q had recovered from his furious pursuit of the panting Brady, from deep in his own left corner, to midfield again, returning to the position he had now obviously been born to play, and found himself sprinting toward the goal again, picking up speed and finding a seam where others had been seeing nothing but a light blue wall for the previous twenty-seven minutes. The keeper seemed wide-eyed and disbelieving - It hadn't yet been ninety seconds since the last one! How could this possibly - "Here he comes...!"

One move. Keeper down. Goal.

Bedlam for the Orange Tiger. As the clock ticked down on the penultimate game of the season, Light Blue held its collective head and wondered at how they’d been so quickly and efficiently dethroned. And the Orange Tiger bounced to the lineup for post-game handshakes with a new sense of purpose. Everyone, it seemed, had found his place on this team. The Orange Tiger was ready to roar.