Christ kicks up a storm for Rodriguez
FAIRFIELD — More than 10 minutes were left in the game last Friday, but Kaitlin Christ still had plenty of reason to be nervous.
The Rodriguez High football team had just tied crosstown rival Fairfield with a 1-yard Myles Burton plunge and the Mustangs were counting on Christ to kick the go-ahead extra point.
Despite nervousness gone ballistic, the senior calmly made the kick — which turned out to be the game-winning point in the 13-12 Mustangs’ victory.
“People were joking around one day, ‘It’s going to come down to you,’ ” Christ said. “I thought they were making fun of me. Then it happened. It was really scary.”
First-year Rodriguez coach Jason Ott said he had no doubts Christ would make the kick.
“I was already thinking about defense and how we were going to stop (Fairfield),” he said. “As long as the snap went down, we were good. . . . You get it down and she makes it.”
“Coach (Ott) turned to me said, ‘You know it’s going to come down to you. You got this,’ ” Christ said. “I was like ‘OK.’ I was breathing so hard. Normally, I don’t get nervous.”
Normally, Christ’s kicking duties involve a soccer ball — and trying to keep the other team from scoring.
Christ plays sweeper the NorthBay Elite Futbol Club’s U-18 Real Madrid — she often heads to soccer practice right after football practice — and also plays on the defensive side of the things for the Rodriguez girls soccer team in the spring.
According to Christ, she and several friends talked about going out for the football team, but she was the only one who followed through.
“I would joke around that I was going to try out for the football team,” Christ said. “I thought it would be cool to have a girl kicker on the team. Others would say they’d do it, but I was the only one who would go.”
It turned out that of the candidates for kicker, Christ proved the most adept at putting it through the uprights.
From the first practice “she lined up naturally behind it,” Ott said. “Her kicking motion was natural, she had her head down. Her technique was perfect when she first came out.”
What’s rarely perfect out at Rodriguez is the weather, specifically the wind, which has been known to torment kickers and even make the goal posts quake.
As for Friday and the game-deciding kick, “It was pretty windy,” Christ said. “I kind of compensated for it. This is a tough place to kick. You never know what’s going to happen with the wind. Trees are like horizontal.”
Aside from awkward changing arrangements — she finds it convenient to keep her gear in her car and used the Rodriguez wrestling room for her locker room during last week’s game — Christ and her teammates have had no problems adjusting to each other.
She just can’t figure out why they tap her on the helmet so much, as football players tend to do to one another.
“They were welcoming. I was nervous — you’re a girl on a football team,” she said. “You have work hard to keep up with the guys. At first they were, ‘Is she serious?’ Now I’ve shown I can do it. They’re really friendly. They still mess with me. I get hit on the head. They think it’s funny to do it to me. That’s great. That’s what I want.”
What Christ eventually wants to do is play soccer in college, preferably at Chico State, and study kinesiology.
“I want to do something sports related,” she said. “Sports is my whole life.”
Right now those sports are futbol . . . and football.
Reach Paul Farmer at 425-4646 Ext. 264 or pfarmer@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=89675
Posted by Paul Farmer
on Sep 22 2011.
Filed under Featured Sports, High school. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
