Niskayuna JV Soccer Covid Breakthrough

It’s a Saturday morning. Occasional clouds dot the light blue sky with the sun peaking above. It’s prime weather for a soccer match. It’s Niskayuna Junior Varsity vs. Colonie, and the intensity is felt between the two sides: this match up has a history of fierce bickering and brawls between players. Elidon Bardhollari, in his second year as JV coach, receives a phone call from a player’s mom, 1 hour before the game is set to start. Teammates are starting to arrive and the atmosphere is buzzing after just coming off a 3-0 home win against Bethlehem a few days prior. 

Then the coach breaks the news: A player on the team has tested positive for COVID-19. Match canceled. As the players leave the fields in disappointment, there is a sense of melancholy and uncertainty that fills the void that is left. Will this game get postponed? Will we have to quarantine? Is the season over?

A couple of days after the breakthrough, coach Eli gives us the much-anticipated news: the season is still on with 6 games remaining including the likes of CBA and Albany. However, there are new rules in place. Due to the fact that a COVID-19 breakout was never really expected to happen in a sports team at Niskayuna, urgent actions needed to be taken. Most notably, was that unvaccinated players will have to quarantine for two weeks. The impact this had on the team as a whole can not be overstated. At least 5 players were taken out and the team was struggling to put down a Starting XI. The players came together closer than ever to fill the gap in the team COVID-19 had laid upon us. With the short numbers available, finishing the season without losing would be a daunting challenge. Winning every game? Impossible. But that’s exactly what this team did. We scored over 30 goals, conceding less than 5. That is what you call a team on a mission. Progression, not Perfection. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. These are the ideals that Niskayuna is fundamentally about and the JV Soccer Team this year has displayed what this means in an amazing fashion.

As the season came to a close, I chose to interview a select group of leaders on the team to get a better, more accurate response from the players. The teammates I interviewed were Patrick Terry, Madhav Raj, Chun Ho Lei, and Brayan Garcia.

RR: What was your guys’ initial reaction to the COVID-19 breakout?

PT: When Covid hit our team, it had a very big impact on us as a whole. I was really scared we were gonna lose all of our games because we lost some good players, But in fact we played really well and got some great victories against good teams. Even though I missed them I still had a great time playing and I thought we all did great as a whole.

RR: How did the changes affect you?

MR: The changes really affected how our team played and increased our stamina. Substitutes who usually got a few minutes now played most of the halves.

BG: The COVID breakout forced many players to go into quarantine for about 1/3 of the season. This allowed remaining players to work twice as hard and forced us to be more unified as a team, on the pitch and off.

RR: What do you think helped the team adapt and succeed with reduced players? What factors contributed to winning the rest of our games?

CL: I think that after we lost some people everyone started to improve their gameplay and focus more since we knew we were down numbers. Also, I want to mention the hard work everyone put in to make our team able to finish this season strong was incredible. Additionally, it was a really fun season even with all the obstacles that were in the way.