SOUTH HADLEY — Though the Easthampton boys soccer team walked away with a win on Wednesday night, it wasn’t as joyful as the Eagles might have expected.
Junior Mateo Navarro was taken to the hospital after a scary collision on the field halted the game with just over 23 minutes to go. Navarro was charging up the pitch and went for a header, jumping into one of Blackstone Valley Tech’s players in a crash that sent both boys tumbling to the ground.
“It’s hard to know fully what happened. I know that he had a head-to-head collision. And it it looked like he was conscious, but it looked like he was having a seizure,” Easthampton head coach Andrew Lawrence said afterward. “But he was conscious and just talking the whole time. So it was scary, but we’re hopeful and being positive.”
Navarro stayed down on the pitch for about 10 minutes before he was stretchered off to a waiting ambulance. Both teams returned to their benches while the trainers and medical staff checked him out.
“I was just in shock, like I couldn’t really process (it),” Easthampton’s Gabe Zellen said.
“Obviously, I’ve never seen anything like that, and it’s very scary,” teammate Javier DeNucce-Simms echoed. “I didn’t know how to comprehend it.”
The Eagles gathered together after Navarro was taken off the field, put their hands in a huddle, and yelled out “Mateo!” before returning to the field to finish the game.
“That second half was for him,” Easthampton’s Carter Daughdrill said. “We love him, and we had to go out there and we just had to finish the job for him.”
Though the second-seeded Eagles ultimately ended up with the 2-0 win and advanced to the quarterfinal round of the MIAA Division 4 tournament, Lawrence emphasized making sure the team and Navarro were OK first.
“I mean, we’re gonna get together tomorrow and really talk about what happened. Try to figure out what’s best for the team to mentally settle us. I think that’s the biggest thing, is dealing with the injury,” Lawrence said. “As much as it’s tough to lose a player like Mateo, it’s also just shocking and scary and a lot of guys haven’t seen something like that, especially to someone that they know and they care about. That’s the biggest shift, is getting them to be OK with what happened.”
The first half of the game was mostly controlled by Easthampton, though No. 15 Blackstone Valley Tech keeper Alec Kamiski-Miller made several critical stops to keep the game scoreless going into halftime. Lawrence says his team improves as the game progresses and they get a better feel for their opponent’s playing style, and that proved true on Wednesday.
Carter Hebert scored both goals for the Eagles, the first a tally from directly in front of the net 15 minutes into the second half. Daughdrill picked up the assist on the first goal. The second goal came with just under 15 minutes remaining, when DeNucce-Simms noticed Hebert and sent him a pass he was able to put in the back of the net.
“I feel like a lot of teams, they underestimate us,” said DeNucce-Simms. “We know ourselves that we’re small, and other teams are bigger than us, but we have the skill and the mindset and we know how to play the game, and we work together, so I think we can do anything.”
Now just two wins away from a spot in the Div. 4 final, this postseason run is all the more meaningful for the Eagles, who are now playing not only for a title, but also for Navarro.
“I want to win this whole thing, I want to win it all. We’re coming for it,” said Daughdrill. “We all have heart. We all want to battle. We’re all in this together.”