Senior kicks it as soccer captain
GETTING A KICK OUT OF IT: Senior Hannah Erb outpaces her opponent. Erb is one of the two team captains of the varsity girls soccer team.
Bright lights shine down on each and every player on the field. Each and every one of the players have played for years and have gone through hours upon hours of rigorous training. But, one player stands out from among the rest. Girls varsity soccer Team Captain senior Hannah Erb details her soccer career.
When Erb is on the field, she believes she needs to always perform well to live up to her title.
“I feel nervous sometimes because as a team captain, I feel like I need to perform well on the field,” Erb said. “But I’m also really excited to be out there with my team. We’re all really good friends, and it’s honestly so much fun playing with them. Before the game I’m mostly nervous, but when the game actually starts, all the nerves go away.”
Erb thanks many people for her success as a player. A couple of people she thanks are her parents.
“My parents always pushed me to be better and to work as hard as I can. We’ve traveled a lot for soc- cer and they ’ve encouraged metodoasmuchasIcan with my soccer career,” Erb said. “They ’ve paid for training, and I thank them so much for that. They ’ve motivated me to work as hard as I can to get as good as I can.”
Another person she attri- butes to her success is the head coach of the varsity soccer team, Coach Carrie Hoffman-Howell
“Hoffman has been great. She has been supportive; she just makes us feel really comfortable when we talk to her. She always has our best interests in mind,” Erb said. “She’s the sweetest lady ever. When someone on the team is going through some stuff, she’s really understanding. She’s really supportive when one of us is having a bad game. She’s always there for you.”
Hoffman-Howell has overseen Erb’s growth throughout three years, as Erb has been on varsity since her sophomore year.
“Hannah’s one of the players that came to me very highly skilled. She made varsity as a sophomore,” Hoff- man-Howell said. “I never put any freshman or sophomores on varsity unless I know they ’re going to play the majority of the time be- cause it would be a waste if they weren’t playing. Once I saw her play at the sophomore level, I knew she had some talent.”
Hoffman-Howell attributes a lot of her team’s success to Erb.
“Hannah’s the kind of player that if you don’t know much about soccer, you kind of overlook her. That thing is true for a lot of center mids and defenders. But what Hannah does is she can control the pace of the game,” Hoffman-Howell said. “She’s the one that lays the ball off to all the forwards and they get all the glory because they’re the ones scoring all of the time, but if Hannah wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be scoring all of these points.”
BEND IT LIKE BECK- HAM: Senior Rheanna Reyes dribbles the ball. The Bowie Girls Soccer team is tied for first in the district.
Erb stated that all of her teammates have been supportive throughout her career. When she was a sophomore, she broke her arm and sat out for nine months and her teammates helped her through this setback
“I had to have three surgeries to fix my arm. It was hard because I just had to watch everybody play while I had to sit out,” Erb said. “But all of my teammates were all very supportive and they were all sad that I couldn’t play. Once I got back and started playing on varsity, which was my first year on varsity, it honestly motivated me to work hard- er and to get where I am. Even though I was set back I was so motivated to improve my skills.”
Erb stated that one teammate in particular has sup- ported her throughout her soccer career. Senior Rheanna Reyes has been one of her best friends since Erb started playing for Bowie.
“Rheanna has been my best friend on Bowie soccer for four years. We’ve always been really supportive of each other,” Erb said. “Even if we get into little arguments on the field we still love each other. We’re always trying to cheer each other up and help each other out while playing.”
Reyes has been friends with Erb ever since they started Bowie soccer. She believes that Erb is one of the best players on the team.
“Hannah’s always really supportive. She’s a really good leader, gives good directions in an encouraging way, she communicates very well too,” Reyes said. “Hannah has a presence on the field. You wouldn’t expect it looking at her, but when she’s playing, she’s really in control of midfield. She’s really aggressive and she works really hard all the time. It makes people around her work hard as well.
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