Flashback: mid-August, high noon, somewhere off of I-90 in the Berkshires. The sun, directly overhead, is baking the turf field like a pizza stone. The Taft Lady Rhinos take the field at pre-season camp to take on the Northfield Mount Hermon squad. The whistle blows and, 40 minutes of play later, a friendly scrimmage ends in Taft’s first loss of the quote-unquote “season.” The loss hung heavy in the back of the team’s minds, until today. In the coaches’ group chat in the wee hours of the morning (8am), Coach Sullivan texted: “send me your Dunkin orders and what you’re looking forward to most today. For me: I’m most excited to see how our girls handle a team they’ve already played. Redemption, rematch, round 2, I want to see them respond.” Digital chills shook the chat and those became the four words to guide the Lady Rhinos during their second matchup against NMH on this sweltering October afternoon. Senior Captain Elly Ouellette, fresh off a noggin injury, led the team with a nonverbal battle cry, putting the first goal of the game in the back of NMH’s net unassisted just a minute after the first whistle. Just 3 and a half minutes later, barely the length of one of Taylor Swift’s new songs, Ouellette did it again, sinking a well placed shot on frame, this time assisted by new 10th grader Ellie Raveis. In this Elly-Ellie collab, NMH had no idea who was more dangerous. Minutes later, NMH tucked their first goal of the game behind Taft keeper Sofia Smith off a corner kick to close out any possibility of a shut out. That fired the Taft squad up. At the 16-minute mark, Sofia Lombardo-Varisco tossed the ball to Ruth Amponsah — Taft GVS’s version of the Scotty Pippin/Michael Jordan duo — to score Taft’s third goal. Up 3-1 at the half, the Lady Rhinos knew they couldn’t afford to back down. In spite of the heat, in spite of Bookstore Pete’s retirement, and in spite of the fatigue from a long week of free blocks and in-class project work time, the whole team knew that the game wouldn’t be over until they had redeemed themselves of their summer camp rivalry. The whistle blew to signal the start of the second half and Raveis, in the most beautiful breakaway the world has ever known, thundered the ball behind NMH’s French-Canadian keeper to definitively signal “oui, oui — WE are are going to make this match ours.” NMH responded to this goal with one of their own, off yet another corner kick (déjà-vu, anyone?). Taft and NMH held each other out for 25 more minutes, all of which was characterized by violent falls (did Harper Van-Maanen ’28 die and come back to life out there? Is Jasleena Thind ’26 okay after flying through the air not once, but twice, to land flat on her tummy? Sofia L-V: how many bruises do you have after bouncing as many times as you did?). With 10 minutes left in the game, the Pippin-Jordan duo struck again, this time in reverse: young Ruth sent a cross into the box for Lombardo-Varisco to finish with all the perfection and attention to detail as her French homework in Coach Sullivan’s class. At the end of the game, the Rhinos hit the bench drenched in sweat and red from the surprising sun burns, but having satisfied their four-part objective, even adding a fifth: Righteous victory. Final score: 5-2.