‘Hey, are you coming to practice today? Should we ride together?’ is often the conversation between two friends who are on the same athletic team. Encouraged by her friend Hannah Yaghini (11), Kailyn Card (11) was inspired to join the girls’ lacrosse team. All around the nation these young athletes are joining sport and club teams, but how many of them joined because their friends were already playing it?
Yaghini and Card’s friendship started when Yaghini asked Card to show up to a lacrosse interest meeting in their freshman year. Yaghini had already started playing lacrosse and wanted more girls to join the team, so she asked her classmate Card to show up. Before this invitation, they were both in the same art class, but they didn’t interact much.
“Every day we would talk more and more — I would talk about lacrosse because we had practices almost every day,” Yaghini said.
A similar situation occurred with Ben Mendez (12) when he decided to join the baseball team through his friend Hayes Bennett’s (12) influence. Now, they’ve both been playing for 4 years together on the same team.
“[Hayes] had a baseball shirt on and I wanted to join the team and it was my first year here, so I asked some [questions about] baseball [to begin],” Mendez said.
Card started out with Yaghini’s position in lacrosse. Playing as a defender isn’t the easiest position to start off in, but they both pulled through.
“Because she came on my referral, she kind of started out in the same position as me ‘cause it just made sense as her friend — like we could help each other,” Yaghini said.
The role of friendship can be translated into other sports as well. Paxson Abney (12) and Kate Metcalf (12) became closer after playing on the same soccer team for the past six years.
“With Kate, practices are definitely [more fun],” Abney said. “She’s very bubbly [and] silly, so it’s just always a good experience.”
As their senior year soon comes to a close, Abney and Metcalf realize that their senior year memories are more bittersweet. Abney recalls the joyful time they had during a summer morning soccer practice that was run by seniors.
“Kate and I got there real early [to] set up, [and we] brought coolers, and we just couldn’t stop laughing,” Abney said. “[We were just] trying to blow up the water balloon and stuff like that. It was just so fun and things kept messing up, so we just had a good laugh.”
Beyond having a good laugh during summer practice, this soccer duo was together behind great accomplishments. The girls’ soccer team has won city and district tournaments for the past two years, but their middle school win stands out the most to Abney.
“We won the district in middle school, which was really big [because] our competition was really tough,” Abney said.
Every sports duo out there has its own way of celebrating each other’s accomplishments. Abney and Metcalf choose to celebrate together with a hug.
“[Whenever I score, Kate would come running up and hug me],” Abney said. “She always has this bright smile that makes you happy no matter what.”
With every athletic event that a high school student has been doing for more than four years comes injuries and physical challenges. However, with the aid of friendship, the struggle can be lessened.
“I had torn my [labrum] twice [during sophomore year] before he had torn his [for the first time], and so I was able to help him out a little bit with the recovery process and [give] some tips on how to make it [less painful],” Mendez said.
Playing on the same team during all years of high school does not have to end in senior year. Many players end up going to the same universities, allowing them to continue their sports with each other.
“We’re both going to the University of Tennessee, and so we both still obviously love baseball, so we wanna go to some of the baseball games at UTK,” Mendez said.
All in all, sports teams create friendships that have a long-lasting impact on athletes whether it may be temporary happiness or life lessons. Yaghini expresses her positive feedback on having a best friend on the team.
“Having someone who can tell you to keep going and not quit and not give up is such a great thing to have,” Yaghini said. “Our bond became stronger and more inseparable, especially we could relate to one another with our opinions on how different games could have worked out, or if we could have done this to make it better.”
