High School Girls

In Heritage soccer, the primary reason we play is for the love of the sport, but most importantly, to be lights towards other teams, to show what being a Christian is about, a little Christ. Our new coach as of last season, Cyrus Salehi, made it clear that as a team we would play for and audience of one and represent Christ in the way we practice, we play, and in everything we do. Every practice would begin with prayer, then Coach Salehi would read from Colossians, which was the team’s focus of for the season. Practice was always a blast, even during conditioning. Once, during a not so fun ab workout, Cyrus started playing Taylor Swift and said the workout could be finished when the song was over; however, Coach happened to “accidently” hit the restart button a couple times which meant unfortunately, our workout was a lot longer! Our team this year was made up of all freshmen, sophomores, and just four juniors, in which more than half had never played before. With such an inexperienced team, both coaches, Cyrus and Leah, started from the basic skills and worked up toward more complicated skills to end the season with an immense improvement from where the team was at in the beginning. Without any seniors, everyone made a point to step up and lead the team in their own way. As a whole, the team bonded as the season went on. Through wins, losses, mercy rulings, and Father of the Bride 2 quotes, we became better athletes, teammates, and learned the true meaning of playing for an audience of one.

Heidi Friedrich, HCA Athlete