By Gaby Moran
Staff Writer
Junior Chris Hinze is use to watching the Coppell boys soccer games from the goal area. However, this district season, he will be watching the beginning games from the bench.
A few weeks ago, during the weekend of Jan. 21, the team went to the Kingwood Tournament in Houston to play with other schools not in the North Texas area. Their first game was Thursday Jan. 21 against Kingwood.
Coppell had a devastating loss with the score of 2-0 but the score was not the only devastating loss for Coppell.
During the first half, Hinze was going up to catch the ball and on his way down, he landed hard on his right ankle in the wet and muddy conditions. While the team and coaches did not know the extent of the injury at the time, Hinze sat out not just for the rest of the game but for the other two in the Kingwood tournament. Senior Jaxon Williams took over.
“I was relieved knowing that my back-up is Jaxon because he is a strong goalie, Hinze said. “But I was mad that I got hurt and would be sitting on the bench for a while.”
Hinze went to several doctors after returning from the tournament and was diagnosed with ankle sprain. His hopes of being back and ready for the first district games were broken when the doctors could not give him an exact date of when he could come back. It would all depend on how Hinze would heal and the physical therapy.
The team now has to prepare for its first district games without him at goal.
“Losing Chris to injury for a while doesn’t change a lot of what we do,” coach Shane Bybee said. “The only difference between Jaxon and Chris is four inches in height Chris has. Much the same for Guillermo. If either Jaxon or Guillermo played at any other school, they would start. We have the luxury of three goalkeepers who could be 5A starters.”
During the non-district, Williams always played the second half after Hinze and was responsible for helping the team with their six shutouts. Now Williams will be taking over both halves and is prepared, but he is recovering from an injury of his own. While at the Kingwood tournament, Williams badly bruised his right hip, although it only hurts when diving for balls on his right side.
“Knowing now that I am going to have to play the whole game in the first couple of district games, the pressure is the same but now I have to mentally and physically prepare myself before the game rather than right before the second half,” Williams said.
In order to help Williams get ready for district, he sat out on their last game before district against Highland Park on Saturday Jan. 30 but Coppell is fortunate that their third string back up, senior Guillermo Aguilar, is too a great goalkeeper. Aguilar was able to shut out Highland Park in his first game of this season.
“Both Jaxon and Guillermo are solid players and we are fortunate to have them as our back up goalies,” senior Kyler Hermanski said.
While Coppell soccer team is thankful to have great backups, Hinze is doing everything he can to get himself off of the bench and back on the field. Hinze is going to physical therapy every day, while the team practices so that he will be healthy in time for most of the district games.
“Right now, I’m hoping to be back for the Marcus game on this Friday or early next week, but I’m just taking it one day at a time and hoping for the best,” Hinze said.
