FORTVILLE — Less than 20 minutes remained in a scoreless game when FC Pride was awarded a free kick just outside the box.
The team’s free kick specialist, Maddie Swingle, wasn’t looking to shoot. Her coach and teammates had other ideas.
“She didn’t want to shoot it, and our coach was telling her to shoot it,” Swingle’s teammate, Shay Shipley, said. “I was like, ‘Maddie, shoot it. You’re right outside the box. Shoot it.’”
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Swingle shot it. The ball sailed just over the goalkeeper’s fingertips and into the back of the net, setting off a celebration that would be repeated less than 20 minutes later.
“It was like chills everywhere,” Swingle said. “Our whole team went crazy, we all started jumping around. It was a dream. It was so fun. To be there with my best friends was like a dream come true.”
The stakes in the game were about as high as can be. It was an Elite Eight game played in San Diego, California, part of the Elite Clubs National League playoffs. The winner would earn a spot in the national semifinals in Richmond, Virginia.
Swingle’s goal ended up being the game winner, propelling FC Pride into the Final Four with a 1-0 victory.
“When the final whistle blew, everybody just swarmed,” Swingle said. “Our whole team just gathered into one pile and dog piled. You just feel like every single person there has experienced something that only your team can feel together. You’re all experiencing the work you’ve done paying off, and you get to do that together.”
FC Pride, after joining the ECNL just two years ago, competed in the national semifinals of the U15 tournament on July 12. They didn’t quite reach their ultimate goal, though.
The club fell 3-1 in extra time, giving up two goals in the waning minutes of the second half of overtime.
They lost again in the consolation game, earning a fourth-place finish.
“You go through the whole season, and that’s what you’re working for. Everything was for that moment and just getting there,” Swingle said. “Even though we didn’t win, the fact that we got to be a part of it and to play the teams that we did … the teams that made it there, those are the best players that we’ll see. Just to play on the same field as them, it’s cool and it’s a privilege.”
“It’s definitely a privilege, especially to set records and be the first team from Indiana to ever go there and get that far,” Shipley added.
Swingle and Shipley, both set to enter their sophomore seasons at Mt. Vernon in a few weeks, have been playing with FC Pride for almost as long as they can remember.
They’ve been teammates with the club since they were 8 years old — “We’ve always just known FC Pride, lived and breathed it,” Shipley said. They teamed up at Mt. Vernon on both the basketball and soccer teams last year, winning a sectional championship together with the Marauders basketball team and falling just short on the soccer field.
Both are captains at FC Pride, with Swingle playing center defender and Shipley playing center mid. As two of the three team captains, they were relied upon to provide leadership to their club teammates during the deep tournament run.
“I would say that a trait both Maddie and Shay share is that they are both very coachable young ladies,” FC Pride coach Jamie Gilbert said. “They do a good job of sharing leadership responsibilities between them and have a positive impact on the group.
“To play at the level Maddie and Shay do, it is clear they are fully committed to their development and make the sacrifices needed to continue to improve. Both had incredible seasons and are very consistent in their performance.”
Mt. Vernon girls soccer coach Steve Williams said he expects to see those leadership qualities transfer smoothly back to the high school field this fall.
“Those two girls have been playing at a high level for a long time,” Williams said. “This is not unfamiliar territory for them, playing in Pride at that level. What they bring to the high school team is invaluable. Their competitiveness, their attitude … they bring it with them, and they expect for that to be here. They elevate the play of everybody around them.”
Both players felt like they, and their team, belonged on the national stage in Virginia. They defeated the eventual national champions, Gwinnett Soccer Academy, during the regular season. They were right there in the national semifinals against the runners-up, Players Development Academy.
The two losses to end their season — coupled with a sectional championship game defeat against Franklin Central last fall at Mt. Vernon — help to keep the competitive fire burning as they prepare to start their second year of high school.
“When you go from that high of a level back to high school soccer, it motivates you to keep that level going,” Shipley said. “We have to make that transition from ECNL to high school and back to ECNL. You don’t want anything to drop. You want that success to continue.”
Having one another to rely on throughout the transition from club soccer to high school is important. They each play multiple sports — both play soccer and basketball, and Swingle also plays tennis at Mt. Vernon — and they both have grown accustomed to the challenge of juggling practices, games, homework and other responsibilities.
It helps that they’ve been competing together for more than half of their lives and can share those experiences with each other.
“We understand everything that it takes,” Swingle said. “That’s something a lot of people don’t understand, what you go through mentally and physically, obviously, to get to the point that we do. And to play multiple sports, not a lot of people do that at the level we do. It’s something that we can bond over. We’re there for each other through it.”
“I’m mostly just thankful to have her by side with everything I do,” Shipley said. “To have that bond we have … it’s unbreakable.”