And the Whistle Blows by Emiko P. '25

Soccer season is officially over. Holy smokes does time fly. It feels like I just stepped on campus to begin preseason, and now I’m handing in my practice gear and taking down the decorations in my locker.

So, how exactly did the rest of our season go? In my last update, I regaled you about our successful regular season. Which leaves me to tell you about how our post-season went. 

Winning our regular season conference title and securing the #1 seed in the conference tournament was cool and all, but what we really wanted was the big shiny silver trophy you get for being the conference tournament champion. 

To get our hands on that trophy, we had to play 3 games in one week, reuniting with opponents that we had already played (and beat) previously during the regular season. Here are the results of that week.

• Tuesday: 2-1 win against Coast Guard
• Thursday: 1-0 win against Babson
• Saturday: 3-0 win against Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) 

With our Saturday win against WPI, we officially became NEWMAC TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS RAHHHHHH!! We snatched up that silver trophy and checked off a huge goal on our season bucket list! It really doesn’t get much better than a conference championship :) 

NEWMAC champs!!

Any team that wins their conference championship automatically gets a bid to the D3 NCAA tournament, which is the national tournament. We absolutely had our sights on performing well and going far in this tournament. My freshman year, we got as far as the Elite Eight, but this year we were unfortunately knocked out in the Round of 32. We won our first game against SUNY Geneseo 3-1, but lost the very next day to Colby College 2-0. We ended our season with a record of 21-2-1, and we tied MIT soccer’s longest winning streak ever at 15 games. And just like that, our season was over. 

But not only was our season over, but suddenly so was my 15 year competitive soccer career.

When I was in seventh grade, I broke my foot.⁠01 Funny story actually: it was during recess when I tried to jump and touch the basketball rim like all my other friends. I missed the basketball net completely, landed on the side of my foot, and limped away while trying to play it cool. #embarassing My dad told me that he found me crying one day, wearing my new boot, saying, “I only have ten more years left of soccerrrrrrr.” The only way I would possibly be able to play ten more years of soccer at the time was if I was planning on playing in college. My dad had never considered the fact that I would want to play in college, and honestly, I hadn’t thought about it either. I guess this specific instance was the moment when college soccer became a conscious idea in my mind.

It is almost absurd to think that the time my seventh-grade self had been dreading – that distant ten-year future where I would one day be done playing competitive soccer – has finally come. Time flies, man.

Honestly, talking about soccer right now is kind of hard. It’s only been a few days, and it’s hard to process how I most likely won’t play competitive soccer again. Soccer has been the common denominator that my life at MIT has revolved around. Every weeknight from 5 to 7 pm is spent out on a turf field. Nearly every Wednesday is a bus trip to a random liberal arts college somewhere in the Northeast. Saturdays are spent on Roberts field, friends and family in the stands. Not to mention the physical part of it all: the feeling of sprinting after a loose ball, running despite a cramp in your side, shaking your legs as the winter chill creeps into your muscles – all these feelings are replaced by eerie quiet and stillness now that the season is over. They are replaced by an antsy anticipation, by the sensation that your muscles should be doing something. 

I worked out for the first time since our season ended, and I’m trying to find ways to deal with this sudden loss of purpose. If I’m not working out to get stronger and faster on the soccer field, then what am I working out for? For literally my entire life, my motivator to push through the pain of every workout, to hold my plank for just 15 seconds longer, to add weight to the squat bar, to push myself just one more lap around the track, has been so that I can be a better soccer player. 

Now what?

I wonder what new purpose I will find to motivate me. Maybe there’s a way to be optimistic about all this. After all, there is a certain sense of freedom that comes with my ties to competitive soccer being abruptly snipped. I know I love athletics, so maybe I will pick up new sports or activities. Maybe I will dance more. Maybe I will play tennis. Maybe I will do yoga. And I guess my time playing soccer hasn’t entirely ended. I will no doubt be tearing it up on the pickup fields at MIT and lifting with the soccer team until I graduate. 

All that’s left now is to be thankful. Thanks to my coaches, who believed in me every step of the way. That belief has now become a fundamental part of my being. I’ll carry that “swag”⁠02 Thanks, Coach Jeff with me now wherever I go. Thanks to my teammates throughout the years, who are now spread all over the country, but especially to the ones here with me now in Cambridge. The soccer team has been the home that has raised me since I was a freshman at MIT, and I hope that me and the other seniors have done our part in maintaining that home this year. You all will do amazing things (including win a National Championship for us hopefully). Thanks to all the trainers, who have patched up every inch of my body at this point and who are one of the few that can say they’ve been present for all the ups and downs of an athlete’s journey. Thanks to the friends and family of the soccer team, who are always there to wave when you look into the crowd and who are always there to feed us goodie bags after games. Thanks to the soccer alumni, who were one of the first to hug the seniors after we played our final game and who have always cheered so loud that we can hear them from across the country.

Wow, I will miss it. I will miss the feeling of slamming into another girl to steal a ball, flying and jumping to win a header, wanting to win so badly it consumes you. I will miss it all. The energy. The people. The joy. 

What a journey. 

As always, from now until forever, roll tech!