Following a varsity player, my nerves were building up. I had thousands of thoughts running through my head. One of the thoughts that popped out at me was the pact my new friends and I had made a pact saying if one of us didn't make it, we would still be friends and have sleepovers on the weekends just as if we all had made the team. When I walked through the wooden door, I saw Coach Jenkins, the varsity coach, and the junior varsity coach's daughter, Maddy.
“Have a seat” Coach Jenkins said pointing at an old couch with flowery patterns that once seemed to be bright with color but now is just old and worn out, like it was a hand me down couch. As I glanced around, the walls were a dull white and there were papers all across the desk, looking like it hadn’t been cleaned all summer.
Locking eyes with Coach Jenkins I thought to myself, this is the moment that determines the fall season of my freshmen year at a new school. Coach Jenkins told me a few words and then said, “Congratulations you are on the JV field hockey team.” Maddy handed me a calendar with practices and game times put on it and with a smile on her face told me “Coach Pastore is excited to have you on her team this season.” I had the biggest smile on my face and with a hop in my step I frolicked back to the locker room.
Once I made it into the locker room, all of my friends turned their heads to look at me and I danced up and down saying "I MADE JV!" We were all overjoyed because out of my new group of friends we had all made it onto the team and knew right then and there that it would be a great season.
    After the first week of tryouts my friends and I thought it would be a great idea to go to UNOs an get dinner and a deep dish cookie, for a late celebration of making the team. There were seven of us crammed into the booth excited to finally get our cookie. We were all excited to be together and overjoyed to be at UNOs.
We were chattering about our upcoming season as we finished up our dinner and Lizzie said, “I can already tell we will be one of the closest bonding teams ever.” I thought the same thing, everyone has been so friendly. We all came to an agreement that we were going to try and be undefeated.
“I think we have hard competition against Longmeadow so we may not be undefeated” Gabby said.
Even though we all knew that we wouldn’t win the first game against Longmeadow, staying hopeful Hannah said “We are really good, I think we have a chance.”
Once the cheery waitress came to our table with a smile asking if we were ready for dessert, we ordered the deep dish sundae that we had been bonding and talking about all week. It was served to our table within minutes. We all admired its beauty, it was a warm chocolate chip cookie bigger than my head with four huge scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and whip cream smack in the center. Across the top of the cookie was a chocolate drizzle that made my mouth water. We admired the cookie for only around a few seconds before we looked at each other and each quickly grabbed a spoon and attempted to eat the cookie faster than the girl next to us because we didn’t want to miss out on any part of the cookie. We all began to slow down and boy was I stuffed! It was so delicious none of us wanted to stop eating it but I took part in putting my spoon down. I sat there quietly just taking in how happy I am and how quickly my life changed. Now I knew I had a new group of friends that can all enjoy the field hockey season with me.
    Towards the middle of the season at a game against Deerfield, I was playing on the field and Coach Pastore yelled “LEXI!” calling me off the field. I came off of the field and the sub went into my spot on the field. I was breathing heavily and was ready to take a break and get water. Coach stopped me with a smile on her face and put her hand on my sticky back to tell me “Great job, you are using a strong stick to stay with the ball you just need to get mental speed. You're a fast runner and you just need to be one more step ahead to catch up with the girl when you lose the ball. If you push yourself that extra step it will make a huge difference and turn the game right around.” When she said that I accepted her advice with “Okay, thank you” and a smile. But on the inside, I was super happy with the things she had said knowing that I am a fast runner and that I could change the whole game by being one step faster gave me a lot of confidence to push myself that much farther. I was happy with my performance for the fifteen minutes I was in the first half. “Go get a drink of water and get in line” Coach told me. My heavy breathing had slowed down by now and I got a drink of water and stood next to my teammates waiting for the halftime buzzer to go off any minute.
    The next week we were at practice, Coach Pastore told us we were going to scrimmage with varsity. She told us this was a good opportunity to learn some new skills from varsity and bond with our big sisters. They split us up into even teams half varsity and half JV on each team. Our team was so excited there were sixteen girls on our team and we were ready to win. We got into a group huddle with out arms around each other and decided who was playing which position and who was going to sub in. A girl on varsity told us “Girls we have to win this, we are going to go out there with all we have and we have a stacked team, this is going to be fun. Remember to use the wings and play your position, we got this!” We all yelled excitedly and thought of our team name and decided on the icebergs because we were going to crush the other team like the iceberg crushed the Titanic. We said “ONE! TWO! THREE! ICEBERGS!” and we broke out of our huddle running onto the field we cheered and got into position. At this moment I was thinking of what a great choice it was to transfer into Minnechaug and decide to play field hockey this fall. I was so happy to be on the field with a great group of girls and knowing I created such a tight bond with these girls the whole season and getting to learn a sport I love made it ten times better. Even though I knew it was coming to the end of the season I wanted it to last forever.