For the past week this campus and this nation have been engulfed in the sadness and sorrow brought on by Tuesday’s terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. However, yesterday afternoon 18 women did what they could to put the tragedy behind them, they carried on with their lives in the best way they knew how. They played soccer.

The University of Massachusetts women’s soccer team defeated Binghamton University 6-2 at Totman Field in the first UMass sporting event since the attacks. Adorned with American flags stapled to their sleeves and red, white and blue ribbons in their hair, with ‘USA’ painted on their thighs the Minutewomen set out to do their part in returning us all to normalcy.

“It was good to get off our derriere’s and get away from the TV and for at least a few some moment have a sense of normalcy to our lives,” said UMass coach Jim Rudy.

Rudy was instrumental in this game even being played in the first place. The Minutewomen’s originally scheduled road trip to the University of Georgia and Auburn University was cancelled on Thursday, leaving them 18 days between matches. Enter Binghamton University and coach Jim Leightman.

The Bearcats, playing their first season of Division I soccer, had been scheduled to play at Northeastern on Friday and at Providence on Sunday. However, with the Big East canceling all competition over the weekend the squad suddenly had an open date.

“Thursday morning Jim [Rudy] called me and wanted to play and I thought it was great,” said Leightman. “The opportunity to play a nationally ranked team is a big thing.”

Adding to the confusion was the Friday match with Northeastern. After receiving assurances that the game would go ahead as scheduled the Bearcats departed Binghamton for Boston on Thursday afternoon. On the trip they received a phone call informing them that the game had been moved to Saturday morning. A second phone call received later that night confirmed that the game had officially been cancelled.

During their stay in Boston the Bearcats held a team meeting. Six squad members made the decision to return home to their families and not play on Sunday, a decision fully supported by Leightman.

“I didn’t want to make anybody come and play who couldn’t be here with their heart,” said Leightman. “A bunch of them wanted to go home and see their families and felt very strongly about that. So I said look, go home. You need to be with your family if that’s what you need to do.”

After a week and a half of practice it was finally time for the Minutewomen to step back onto the field and release some of the tension that had built up inside of them. Both teams came out tight and had trouble putting together any sort of attack until the 27th minute when Erin Lilly won a long ball 25 yards from goal on the left wing and hit a square ball to Martha Conover in the center of the park. Conover then hit an angled ball to her right that found Stephanie Santos breaking into the box and the freshman calmly placed the ball past Bearcat goalkeeper Lauren Cherry for a 1-0 UMass lead.

That goal really seemed to lift the squad’s spirit and ease the tension that was surrounding the match. After the goal the Minutewomen began to push forward with much more purpose and fervor. It was obvious to all in attendance that soccer was now firmly focused in the minds of these women.

“We were just ready to go and we’re starting to get back in the groove of things,” said UMass captain, defender Sarah Cook. “It was just a relief to go out and take our minds off of it for a little bit.”

While the Minutewomen’s performance and the result will surely bring smiles to the faces to the team and its fans, those smiles will be masking a deeper pain.

“We wanted this to be a meaningful thing for us and not just show up and play,” said Coach Rudy. “We certainly didn’t play for fun today. This wasn’t for fun, this was a statement that we enjoy freedom in this country.”

Life must carry on and life will carry on both here at UMass and throughout America. Sunday’s game was just a step in returning us to where we were before Tuesday’s attack.

“It was good to just get out and play,” said Leightman. “One of the things about the American spirit is that we get knocked down, but we get back up, and I think it’s important to get back up. I think that if we don’t get back up than the people who have done this and perpetrated this have beaten us. They haven’t just attacked buildings; they’ve attacked the American spirit. And we can’t let that happen.”