Bella Sweet, Shoreham-Wading River girls soccer respond to teammate's injury with late goal to earn draw vs. Bayport-Blue Point

Bella Sweet didn’t want to leave the side of Grace Hillis. On senior night, Hillis suffered a brutal leg injury after a fight for the ball late in a Suffolk Division III girls soccer match. While Hillis, a senior for Shoreham-Wading River, lay on the turf waiting for the ambulance to arrive at Shoreham-Wading River High School, Sweet continued to check in on Hillis, her friend and fellow co-captain.

But Sweet also had to stay ready for when play resumed. And she certainly was.

“When she went down, we all knew the rest of the game was for her,” Sweet said. “It definitely inspired us. We wanted to win for her.”

The game was delayed for roughly 30 minutes with Shoreham-Wading River trailing Bayport-Blue Point by a goal before the injury. But Sweet capitalized on a deflected kick by the Bayport-Blue Point defense, ran through the loose ball and fired a goal from 10 yards to tie the score at 1 with 1:12 left in the second half, less than five minutes after Hillis was injured with 5:37 left. The two teams tied at 1 after two 10-minute overtime periods.

“We had to work even harder when you lose such a big player on the team,” Sweet said. “We wanted it for Grace. That was for Grace.”

Coach Adrian Gilmore credited Sweet and the entire team for responding when trailing after an injury to the four-year starting defender. Hillis was a Newsday Top 100 selection and is committed to play at Old Dominion.

“When Grace was down, Bella kept coming over and there was a look of pure concern,” Gilmore said. “(Grace) kept saying, ‘I’ll be alright’ and Bella kept saying, ‘I got you,’ so she did what any best friend, any great teammate, any captain would do and she put the team on her back and she put the ball in the back of the net.”

Connor Leahy flicked in a goal off a long ball from Isabella Juliano for Bayport-Blue Point (11-2-1) with 28:44 left in the first half. Shoreham-Wading River is 10-2-2 with both teams in next week’s Suffolk Class A playoffs.

The players dealt with another delay when the lights went out for 20 minutes during overtime. The game resumed and ended more than three hours after the original start time.

“Momentum is a funny thing,” Gilmore said. “You can have it the whole game and one play, one foul, one card, one injury kind of changes the whole game. So I’m very proud of the girls after trailing 1-0 basically the whole game, we were able to turn it up despite her getting hurt.”

Bayport-Blue Point coach Katina Cokinos said she could see how her own team was also impacted by seeing Hillis’ injury. She credited both teams for showing the toughness to play through it.

“Either team could have won tonight,” Cokinos said . . . “Our girls knew we could grab this game the same way I know Shoreham knew they could grab this game from us. So a point for both teams, I think both coaches will take it.”