Broken cheek in one place, broken nose in four and it costs six weeks of playing time. All of this coming from playing her favorite sport…soccer.

During the summer right before school started the J.V boys and the varsity girls decided to have a friendly scrimmage against each other. The game was going well but friendly wasn’t the word to describe it in the end.

With ten minutes to go senior Amanda Arends and Nick Koza went up for a leader at the same time and collided heads.

“She went down and so did Nick,” senior Jaclyn Rehmke said. “Her hand was over her face when she did and she tried to get up. She saw that there was blood in her hands and she fell down from the shock of it. I don’t know why she tried to get up. We all just backed up and gave her space. I was in shock. An incident like this has never happened before.”

“I feel really bad about the whole situation. It was a 50/50 ball and we both went for it,” senior Nick Koza said.

“I was in shock when it happened,” freshman Sophie Miller said.

“I was just thinking is Amanda still going to be hot?” sophomore Heather Greibrok said.

Amanda was rushed to the hospital and into the emergency room. She soon found out this wasn’t going to be a quick fix.

It turns out she had broken her nose in four places, and her cheek in one. With an injury like that Amanda would need plastic surgery to correct the break. Dr. Lee from Mason City drove to Albert Lea and preformed the surgery.

“He did a great job on the surgery,” Arends said.

“People told me that if they didn’t know it had been broken they wouldn’t be able to tell.”

On top of having surgery she was then told she couldn’t play soccer for six weeks, which is most of the season.

“It’s terrible sitting out senior year,” Arends said. “It’s my favorite sport and I’ve always dreaded something like this happening. I try pushing the team from the bench, and give as much encouragement as I can,”

With Amanda sitting out the team decided to try to cheer her up and make her feel apart of the team even though she was unable to play by writing on their wrists before each game. They would each write number five and AA standing for her number and initials.

“It made me feel like they are going to miss me and I do mean a lot to the team,” Arends said.

The coach Rick Barnhill recently named Amanda a co-captain. Other captains include Kendra Olchefske, Samantha Overgaard, Whitney Wilson and Leah Walters.

“I made her captain because of two reasons,” Coach Rick Barnhill said.

“One is because of her positive motivation to get back and the second reason is to reward her for her commitment of still coming to practice and working her way back to fitness level.”

Some team members also commented on Amanda being captain and all agreed with Barnhill that it was a positive addition to the other four captains.

“It’s a good honor for her,” senior co-captain Leah Walters. “She has been really supportive of our team even though she couldn’t play. I think she is very deserving of the honor.”

“Amanda has great determination and love for the game to come back from a horrific accident,” senior Elyce Rehmke said.

“She deserves it because she has contributed a lot to the team,” freshman Stephanie Ferguson said.

“It’s a really positive thing that came from a negative year,” Arends said. “It pushes me even harder.”

Amanda will be able to start playing October 4 and the game is against Mankato East.

“As a team I think we will dominate both because it’s homecoming and it’s senior night,” Arends said. “I’ve pumped up all year to play, so I think I will do my ultimate best.”

So far this season Amanda has had to sit on the bench and watch her team go through the ups and the downs and the wins and the losses. She finally gets the opportunity to play, what she has been waiting for all season.

“Something I learned from this incident is that you don’t realize how much you love something until you can’t play it,” Arends said.