By Emma Goodson
Medill Reports
The clock stopped. Away 10, Home 9 hovered in yellow lights above the north end of Knute Rockne Stadium. But Nicole Chavez wasn’t ready for the game to end. She saw the ball bounce out of the net and swiftly scooped it up, running downfield before hearing the final whistle and feeling tears roll down her cheeks.
Blue and orange balloons danced in the wind as the Whitney Young lacrosse team accepted defeat to Lincoln Park on May 7. Chavez, 17, donned her Senior Night tiara as she walked across the field that had just betrayed her and toward her family who carried handmade posters and had ridden on four buses for this moment.
Her night wasn’t supposed to end in a loss, or even a double-overtime loss for that matter. But Nicole stopped caring about that once her teammates gathered around to celebrate the culmination of a high school lacrosse career that began only three years prior.