Berrang’s back … and another thing (a few, actually)
Once or twice throughout her 12-year soccer career, Waynesboro senior Kristin Berrang admitted she may have longed to be injured, you know, so she wouldn’t have to do the work. Sitting on the sidelines and being another coach on the bench is easier than running up and down a pitch for over an hour and a half. You don’t sweat and you’re never sore after coaching.
“I think, long ago, I wished that,” Berrang said Tuesday before she took the field against Stuarts Draft. “Probably because I was lazy. But once you get injured and you’re not able to play and do something you love, you figure out how much it’s not fun to be on the sidelines.”
So that’s why she was so happy. Happy enough to smile the whole time, and flail her arms around as she talked about finally, after three months of healing from a broken ankle that sidelined her the week before the Group AA indoor track meet, being back on the pitch. She’s a player, not a coach, and while screaming “man on, man on” from the sidelines might be all fine and dandy for Robin Hersey, it’s not for a girl he named captain during her sophomore season.
“To have to watch from the sidelines, it’s not the first thing I want to do,” she said.
But she saw the game in a whole new light, she saw how the young Little Giant team worked together and what their weak spots were. Always the student (a University of Virginia bound student at that, a decision made on Tuesday with dad, Chris, no doubt emptying his checking account to pay for it, we’re guessing, sometime today), Berrang noted those weak points and made an effort, when she returned, to erase them.
Her first match back was last week against Turner Ashby. But in the cold and wind Tuesday, you would have thought it was her first game ever. Berrang excitedly lifted her right leg to point out the broken bone and made no bones about it—she was happy to be back.
In her second game back, she notched three assists against Wilson Memorial. At home against Draft on Tuesday, Berrang hooked up with Taylor Sayre twice.
“It was really nice to get those three assists,” she said. She’s right, it’s always good to come back and help the team.
All Hersey could say was the obvious when asked if it was good to have Berrang back.
“It sure is,” he said.
He’s right and Berrang is happy.
“You figure out how much it’s not fun to be on the sidelines,” she said. “And I just figured out how much I do love the game.”
Just watch out for her flailing arms, they’ll take your head off, man.
And another thing: Last week Berrang was named the Virginia High School League Group AA Female Athlete of the Year. (Why are we just hearing about this WHS? Seriously.) It takes into account grades—she pulls a GPA above 4 (gee, what’s that like, please. Somebody tell us, we never sniffed a 3 in high school)—community and school service. We’d list everything Berrang does but, well, we don’t have all day to type.
All we can say is, good on you Kristin Berrang. Good on you.
Miss her yet, Waynesboro? Don’t worry, you will.
Falling behind to Broadway: Not good.
Waynesboro baseball coming back to pick up an 8-5 win: That’s swagger.
Seriously, if there’s a hotter RBI producer than Josh Craig in the Southern Valley District right now, e-mail me and let me know.
Waiting ... waiting ... waiting ...
Yeah, thought so.
Just what the doctor ordered: To say it’s been a roller-coaster season for Josh Podgorski and his Cougars would be an understatement (though not good enough to warrant an entry into the 2008 Understatement of the Year contest). That’s why Tuesday’s 6-5 extra-inning win over R.E. Lee was big for Stuarts Draft.
Remember, this is a team that had lost three extra-inning affairs, two of them on walk-off homers. So when R.E. Lee tied the game up in top half of the seventh, don’t blame any Cougars (or Podgorski for that matter) if they started shooting each other “here-we-go-again” looks in the dugout.
But Seth Via’s bloop single to score Mickie Holbert in the bottom of the eight put the kaibash on that.
“Team character comes into play when you are trailing late into a ball game and when things are not going the way you want,” Podgorski said. “It was nice to see our kids show some character and determination to fight back and tie the game and then win it.”
Did somebody ship some swagger down the Target Turnpike? Just asking.
Real quick like: Somebody pat Kalee Robinson on the back when you see her in the halls of Waynesboro this week. The freshman midfielder turned into a goalkeeper to fill in for another freshman net minder—the injured Kate Garber. According to Hersey, she did a great job.
Seriously, did you pat her yet?