SACCO: The way to wrap up a season

How would you end your star-crossed senior season? Would you be able to suffer through too many matches saddled to the bench, nursing a broken ankle, taking on a new and unfamiliar role of being another coach from the sidelines, all the while knowing that, man, this is it? Is this how it’s going to end?
Would you, after your return, suffer through a shoulder injury during your third match back? Then go out and play back-to-back games two days later?
Then, in your last home game, your last chance to play on the sweetest pitch this side of Harrisonburg, would you pop a goal in? Give everybody something to remember you by? A final shot, slicing through defenders, sailing past the goalkeeper and denting the back of the net. Etched in your memory. Set in stone.
Anybody looking for a moment to carve into the chiseled-out Little Giant that stands sentinel over the old Wilson-Jackson field? Waynesboro senior Kristin Berrang provided the image. Standing there after the Little Giants’ 6-0 win over Rockbridge on Friday, her body wrapped in ice packs and Saran Wrap, she looked more like a prize fighter after 12 rounds than the 18-year-old, three-year captain who said goodbye the only way she could – by putting Taylor Sayre’s crossbar bouncer back into the net.
Picture perfect.
It took a few seconds to realize she was the one who put it in; her teammates and friends (one and the same, folks, one and the same) quickly surrounded No. 12 and peppered her with high fives and hugs. They hid her jersey behind gathered love and respect.
Dad in the stands, apologizing for being not-so-vocal afterward, smiling and clapping with Mom beaming just as brightly. Someone yelling out, “Way to go, KB.”
And coach Robin Hersey almost giggling with delight and sighing when, four goals and 80 minutes later, he tried to recall that moment.
“What a way to go out,” he said. “We’re happy for her.”
All that was missing was Ed Driskill, her cross country coach at the high school, handing her flowers and holding back tears as he said goodbye to his runner after her last home meet back in the fall.
They won’t sing songs of Berrang, those special refrains are saved for the likes of Mariah Hagadone after she won her first state title in her final try. Or Jacob Hutchinson slapping down a two-point conversion try at James Madison University that turned all of Virginia’s tough black-lunged coal country into whining crybabies and gave Riverheads its second state football title.
You’ll file Berrang under “memorable,” right next to Draft’s Kerby Hatter bouncing around the basketball court like an elfin Wham-O Super Ball, or Mary Williams bullying down two forwards to corral a save in Greenville.
“I was surprised,” Berrang said, struggling to put her jersey back on over the ice pack balanced on her shoulder. “To go out with a goal was really special to me.”
And unexpected from a girl who admitted that she likes seeing her name next to the assist line in the scorebook.
“I was surprised,” she said. “I really don’t score a lot. I was shocked and smiling. It was great.”
With her personal championship bout over and won, she turned, her shoulder bulky from the ice bag under the jersey, grimaced slightly and, with a hint of a limp, hobbled off the pitch into the stands. Floating like a butterfly, giggling with glee.