Women’s college soccer team wins conference championship just 3 days after its beloved goalie died

CNN

By Don Riddell, CNN

(CNN) — The aftermath of a penalty shootout is always emotional.

One team will be joyfully exuberant, celebrating a victory wrought from the most nerve-wracking tension. That ecstasy will often be peppered with relief because things rarely go perfectly in a shootout. But for the other side, there is only dejection and heartbreak; it’s cruel to come so close to winning and lose.

On November 9 in the Big Ten tournament championship game, it would have been hard to guess the result just from looking at the University of Washington’s women’s soccer players. They hugged each other tight, and some were weeping on their knees as they processed both a win and a loss: Just three days before the final, beloved goalkeeper Mia Hamant had died.

Hamant had been diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of stage 4 kidney cancer in April, upending her soccer dream for her senior season. But as she was tossed into a desperate fight for her life, Hamant remained an integral part of the team, both in the locker room and as their biggest cheerleader on the sidelines for home games. She was also ready to contribute on FaceTime when they were on the road.

“It’s hard to perfectly describe her because Mia was Mia,” the Huskies head coach Nicole Van Dyke told CNN Sports, adding: “If I didn’t start with her being an exceptional goalkeeper, she might be upset.”

Last season, Hamant’s save percentage ranked her as one of the top three goalkeepers in the college game, but she was valued for so much more than her ability to stop shots.

“She was strong, resilient, an exceptional teammate,” Van Dyke continued. “She was funny, she just regularly kept us laughing, she always brought people with her. She brought us so much joy.”

Hamant documented her fight against cancer on her Instagram page, @miakickscancer, and she maintained regular contact with the coaches while helping develop some of the players in the team, particularly this season’s sophomore goalkeeper Tanner Ijams.

“She was probably my biggest role model and definitely my biggest inspiration going into this season,” Ijams told CNN Sports. “You could just see how incredibly strong she was throughout all of this because you could tell how much pain she was in and we all knew that she was dealing with this insane battle of her life, and yet she was still laughing with us.”

But on November 6, the laughter stopped. The Huskies had just beaten Wisconsin in their semifinal match when they learned that they had lost their friend and teammate.

“It’s something no one’s prepared for,” explained Van Dyke, “Fortunately, we were surrounded by friends and family, and I know that’s what Mia and Mia’s family wanted for us. To be together in that moment, we’re unbelievably grateful for that.”

They all spent the next day together, united by grief as they tried to make sense of their loss without somebody who would usually be on hand to lift their spirits.

On a team outing to Target, they bought pajamas and candles, and at Chick-fil-A, they drank milkshakes. The next day, on the eve of the final, the senior players were asked whether they should even take the field against Michigan State. The players looked quizzically at their coach, incredulous that they were even having the conversation, but she had to be sure: Was carrying on what they all wanted to do?

“I know she would be up there making fun of us for being so sad,” Ijams recalled. “We knew that she would want us to go out in that finals match and crush them. So, that’s what we did.”

The players could sense Hamant everywhere around the stadium that day, they listened to her playlist in the locker room and they couldn’t help thinking of her when a sunset, which she so admired, glowed in the exact orange hue of the ribbons they’d been wearing in her honor all season. Orange is known as the color of kidney cancer awareness.

Nobody could have known it at the time, but in what would be one of Hamant’s final games for the Huskies, she was the hero. In a quarterfinal match of the Big Ten tournament last season, Washington beat Iowa in a penalty shootout and Hamant made three saves. It seemed tragically poetic that in the first game after her passing, the match against Michigan State would also be settled with spot kicks, during which the goalkeepers play an outsized role in the proceedings.

“Mia loved penalties, and I definitely share that love with her,” Ijams said. “She would have been absolutely thrilled to go to penalties. I knew that we had already won the game before the penalties even started.”

Channeling some of the tricks and mind games that her late teammate had taught her, Ijams imposed herself on the shootout, saving two of MSU’s first three kicks.

There would be no need for a fourth. Washington’s penalty takers all converted, securing an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and a chance to win the national title – a goal that the team is still chasing.

After their successful spot kicks, each player paid their respects.

Jadyn Holdenried lifted her jersey to reveal a t-shirt with the inscription “For Mia,” Laura Cetina kissed her orange wristband, and Alex Buck blew kisses to the heavens. By the time Julia Hüsch stepped up with the chance to finish the game, Ijams could feel the emotional dam breaking.

“At that point, my job was done because I knew she was going to put it away,” she said.

When the players all rushed into each other’s arms a moment later, the emotion was palpable.

“We felt that our love for (Mia) wasn’t going to be defined by any result,” explained Van Dyke. “We didn’t put pressure on ourselves to do it. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the stadium, or across the nation, to finish in penalties to win that game.”

“Everyone was just sobbing in each other’s arms,” said Ijams, “We were just saying like, ‘Hey, we did it, like we did it for her.’”

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