The unimaginable has happened: school is out for the rest of the year, sports are cancelled, and seniors are losing their last season as high school athletes. Now spring season sports, such as girls soccer, will not get their season back. 

There are six seniors and one manager that will not finish their last season on the girls’ soccer team. The seven seniors are heartbroken about not being able to finish out their last season.

“The virus basically is taking away what we’ve worked so hard to accomplish,” senior Caroline Bryant said.

During the first game against Little Rock Christian Academy, Bryant was hit by an opposing player while guarding the goal, resulting in a concussion.

“That’s definitely not how I want to go out. I just want a couple more games,” Bryant said.

Bryant, along with her senior teammates, agree that the 2020 season girls soccer team has potential, with closely knit chemistry compared to past years.

“I’ve waited four years to be a senior on the team and I feel like we were going to do really well this season, we had all of the parts and it was going to work,” senior Isabel Farnsworth said.

Farnsworth is a multi-sport athlete, participating in both soccer and track. She is committed to play for Rhodes College in Memphis next year. Luckily COVID-19 is not affecting her recruiting process since she has already signed her letter of intent. 

Farnsworth hopes that if people take self-quarantine seriously and practice social distancing, the spread of the virus will diminish. She does not, however, think that the soccer season will return when school resumes because of the cancellation of conference games. Manager senior Jasmine Crowell does not think that school will resume this year at all.

“Central is such a big school with so many people, and I don’t think that the district wants to risk anyone getting sick,” Crowell said.

Senior Avery Taylor is also a collegiate athlete committed to Hendrix College in Conway to play soccer. Taylor says that the uncertainty of whether or not soccer games become rescheduled is horrible to think about, especially with it being her last season as a high school soccer player.

“One of the worst parts is not being able to play with my friends before I go to college and not having a senior night,” Taylor said.

Senior Ava Horton is not playing soccer past high school, so this season was her last chance to play for a team. 

“The worst part about losing senior season is losing the chance to play soccer with this team for the last time especially since I felt like we had a strong team this year,” Horton said.

Two-thirds of the seniors are not playing in college, and now they have been stripped of their final season.

“I’ve played for the past 13 years, and I’m not playing in college, so this season was supposed to be like a goodbye of sorts to a sport that has meant so much to me,” Bryant said.

Although COVID-19 is disrupting senior Caroline Solloway’s plans, she recognizes that the health and well-being of her teammates and fellow students is the top priority.

 “I’ll be extremely sad to have to say goodbye to central soccer without the chance to even experience it my senior year. I’ve played soccer for the majority of my life, and it’s definitely a part of my identity,” Solloway said. “As much as I wanted and still want to play this season, we’re experiencing such an unprecedented and sad issue, and I just want all my friends and teammates to be safe.”