Mosquito and Goliath

As the wolf pack closes in, the Mosquito lies in wait.

Shifting ever so slightly on the balls of her feet, she bides her time, measuring the ground between them -- her ground. Closer, closer. The wolves are cocky. She has seen their kind many times before, all boiling with bravado, jacked up on Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Puffs and Gatorade until their eyeballs are jiggling in their sockets.

"Look, a girl!" they jeered before the game. "They got a girl! We're gonna kill 'em! Yeah!"

As her coach, it was music to me, for nothing motivated her more than the loudmouth derision of her opponents. And nothing was more damaging to the other team's morale than the moment when she reared up and kicked their sorry butts.

Four of them are now charging downfield, forming around a lead striker on the fly. He's a belligerent Sluggo, bossing and pointing and directing traffic as he pounds the ball forward, over the smashed brown grass of Magruder Field and the bald patches of dirt where 10 million kickoffs and Saturday morning scrums have killed every living thing within a nine-foot circle. Not even ants can survive out here.

Sluggo is big and fast as a wagon full of rocks rolling downhill. He's used to getting his way, intimidating everyone around him -- and he's eyeing the Mosquito with a murderous gleam. Before him stands a pixie of a girl. Her teammates call her the Mosquito because she is the smallest member of the squad -- and because she harasses opponents to their last nerve. On this unforgettable day, she is 8 years old. Thirty-six pounds soaking wet, with a ponytail dyed blue some days to match her uniform. Her name is Shelby Hammond. And she lives to play soccer. She is the star defender and only girl left on the 8-and-under College Park Hornets in the soccer-crazed suburbs of Washington.

The Hornets have been together for two years by this point -- roughly 75 practices and 35 Pee Wee league games, enough to learn the basics of the sport, enough for a few of them to demonstrate something that might be called "consistency." But none is yet as consistent as Shelby. She is crouching low now, rocking from side to side. Her steel-blue eyes are unreadable -- a strange, unnerving void. Sluggo hesitates in mid-rush, momentarily perplexed. He is closing fast, driving the ball in a bum's rush for the goal, but the Mosquito shows none of the customary signs of panic or submission. In fact, she appears to be grinning at him.

Closer . . . closer . . . closer . . . The relievers erupt on the sideline -- "Shelby! Shelby! Shelby!" -- as the rest of the Hornets on the field begin to wheel into position. It is the only thing I have ever managed to teach them in two years of coaching, the importance of orbiting in one particular spot on the field instead of chasing after the ball in a mob and kicking one another black-and-blue.

Thomas Waring, the team's hard-hitting midfielder and the kid who usually runs to the rescue on defense, is shot. Twice the size of the Mosquito, he's caked with dirt, red-faced and soaked from battling for the ball against his oversize rivals -- 37 minutes of lunch-bucket soccer that has earned him the nickname the Hammer. The sandy-haired bodyguard stands on buckled legs, hands on hips, panting, 30 yards away from the action.

Ben Haner and Bryan Basdeo -- two-thirds of the Hornets' triple-threat offense, are rolling back across midfield, trailed by Kevin Guerrero, the team's leading scorer. Kevin -- the Salvadoran Terror -- is the son, grandson and great-grandson of players. In Kevin's world, kids take their first steps on soccer fields, and they get their first pair of shin guards when they are 3. The game is the center of community life for Washington's Latino immigrants. There are matches every weekend and doubleheaders during holidays, and the families bring food, so there's no reason to go home before nightfall.

Ben, Bryan and Kevin know it's now or never. The score is 3-2. Underdog College Park is down by one goal to the team from Beltsville, favorites to win the division and advance, as always, to the county league championship. One more score, and the Hornets become just another speed bump in powerhouse B-ville's blitz to glory.

"Shelby! Shelby! Shelby!" the relievers chant.