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Diary: Bayside soccer star treasures what it means to be part of a team

By D.J. Glazer

Bayside’s D.J. Glazer, the city’s leading goal scorer last season, takes us inside her world as one of the area’s top girls’ soccer players in her exclusive biweekly diary for timesledger.com. She and the Commodores will look to build off their PSAL Class A semifinals berth last season and challenge for a city title.

So far my senior year has been amazing. Thanks to my parents, coaches, teammates and friends, this year couldn’t be getting any better.

After beating our rivals Cardozo, we were faced with our next competitors, Francis Lewis on Oct. 2. Angry because of our prior loss, we were pumped up and ready to bring all we had. Prior to game, as a team we sat down in a huddle to discuss tactics along with listening to inspirational speeches.

As the warm-up began, you could see the fire in everyone’s eyes. Right when the first whistle blew, the 90-minute fight began. We were up 2-0 at half time but knew the game wasn’t over. Then three minuets into the second half, we scored again, taking the lead to 3-0. As the final whistle blew you could hear the fans clapping and see the smiles on every teammates’ face. It was a great feeling beating our two biggest rivals back to back.

Although that game was over, we still needed to focus on our up-and-coming games. We played Flushing the following week, beating them 11-2. After the match, I traveled to Washington, D.C., with my Massapequa Elite travel team for one of our final tournaments as a team. My coach is big on team bonding events. Every time we go away we do activities at night before we go to bed. This time we were split into groups and had to create a music video.

We all sat down and watched the videos together. The whole time the videos were playing everyone was laughing. Some of them even brought tears to my eyes because of how funny they were. Times like these make me realize that this team is so important to me. They’re my second family and, although next year I’ll meet all new girls, I will certainly think of these funny times.

Coming back from an amazing weekend, we rolled right into an amazing week. It was spirit week at Bayside High School! On Tuesday, I walked into school with four of my best friends wearing feetie pajamas. We played Forest Hills that afternoon. Although we were not at our best, like all great champions, we found a way to win the game 2-0.

On Wednesday, everyone represented his or her favorite sports teams. On Thursday, I dressed like a neon high lighter for twin day with Vanessa Jimenez — my best friend and our goalie — and Friday was the pep rally. Everyone gathered at our field to celebrate the fall teams, and right after the celebration we had a game against Thomas Edison, beating them 10-0. With two games left in the regular season, we need to win to secure the division title.