Harrison Hill kicked through the smoke of uncertainty, the soot of fear, finding the back of the net with a solid right foot on a spotless white ball.
He kicked the first goal, the only goal his Westmont College team would need, then he turned and ran.
He ran past the teammate who, at this moment, owned only the uniform on his back.
He ran past a teammate who had prepared for the game by searching Craigslist for a place to sleep.
He ran off the field, under the covered bench area, and into the arms of one who lost more than any of them.
In last week's Montecito fire, the home of Westmont Coach Dave Wolf burned to the ground.
Hill hugged his teary-eyed teacher and lifted him to the sky.
"This is the first brick in your new house," he whispered.
This is how the healing always begins, doesn't it? A community torn by tragedy searches for a reason to find each other. A group of athletes reaches beyond itself to become that reason.
The healing, it seems, always starts with a game.
On Monday afternoon, on a pristine field abutted again against clear and majestic hills, there was a game like few others. Westmont College played Azusa Pacific University for the Golden State Athletic Conference championship and a spot in the NAIA national tournament.
They played even though Westmont, a private Montecito college with an enrollment of 1,347, had been shut down since last week because of the wildfire.
They played even though 15% of the campus had been destroyed, including faculty housing for about two dozen teachers and a handful of dorms for 50 students.
They played even though they were supposed to play on Saturday, with no rest and no preparation, but the game was delayed by request of Azusa Pacific.
That's right. Imagine that. Azusa Pacific could have won by forfeit, yet the defending national champions insisted on postponing the game until they could bring the bedraggled Westmont soccer players to their campus, house them, feed them, and get them ready to play.
"At the end of the day, that title can burn up and those rings can melt away," said Phil Wolf, Azusa Pacific's coach and brother of the Westmont coach. "Sports are about relationships, family, brotherhood."
So, heavy underdogs with heavy minds, the Westmont players showed up on the Azusa campus last weekend with little chance of even paying attention until the game.
