Playing through the pain

Faith Hauberg surprised everyone, including herself. 

The instant she received the pass from Izzy Passman, she turned and fired a shot from roughly 40 yards out. She knew it was destined for the back of the net almost immediately.

“Once I hit the shot, I knew it was going in,” Hauberg said. “Sometimes when you hit a ball, you just know.”

She noticed the goalkeeper in a vulnerable position and decided to take her chances.

“I’ve never scored that far out, so it was kind of a shock to me too,” she said.

Hauberg’s goal broke the ice in the girls soccer Class 7A state championship game between Vestavia Hills High School and McGill-Toolen. The Lady Rebels went on to win the game, 2-1, and Hauberg was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

Hauberg, in a humble tone, downplayed the award.

“Every single one of us deserved that award,” she said. “All of us worked hard to get to that point.”

But her teammates’ reaction to her name being called told a different story. Excited screams originated from the team, which was lined up facing the center of the field and awaiting its moment to celebrate the championship. Hands formed in the “I love you” sign waved at her as she was getting her picture taken.

When Hauberg returned after posing with her plaque, teammates on each side of her embraced her emphatically.

“When they said Faith Hauberg [as MVP], I was almost in tears. It was a special moment for her,” said Vestavia Hills head coach Brigid Littleton.

That’s because there was more to the story than simply a highlight goal. It was the third game in just over a week that Hauberg had played through a torn meniscus in her knee, and it was just the third game all season that she had played the outside back position.

Hauberg’s history of knee injuries over the last three years reads like a laundry list. She sat out part of her junior season with a torn MCL, then returned only to miss the remainder of the season after a meniscus tear.

But in her senior campaign, a torn meniscus in a first-round playoff game against Oak Mountain wasn’t going to sideline her for the last few games of her career. 

“I knew I had to play,” Hauberg said. “I couldn’t skip out on my last one. It was horrible sitting there watching [in 2017] when all I wanted was to be out on the field.”

Hauberg didn’t deny that those final three games were tough, but she was pleased at how she was able to play effectively after warming up.

“It was painful for a little bit, but once I got my adrenaline going, I was able to forget about it and focus on the game,” she said. “I was never 100 percent, but after the first 20 minutes I was able to completely ignore the pain.”

On top of playing through the pain, Hauberg was in a different position than normal. She plays outside back for her club team and will likely play there in college at Furman University, but she was forced to move there from her normal outside midfield spot for the Lady Rebels after Megan Swanzy went down with an injury.

“She said, ‘Coach, put me wherever. I want to play,’” said Littleton.

The win over McGill was a particularly sweet one not just for Hauberg, but the entire Lady Rebels team. Last spring, McGill-Toolen defeated Vestavia Hills in the state championship game while Hauberg was on the bench. This season, the Lady Rebels’ six seniors were able to lead the team past the Yellow Jackets to win the title for the second time in three years.

“I was so excited to play them and I know everybody else was because it was our revenge match,” Hauberg said. “We knew we could beat them and we wanted to win state.”

Hauberg recalled fondly the state championship her sophomore season. She said she “was playing for the seniors” that spring. But being unable to contribute in the final game last year stung.

“I felt so helpless, because all I wanted was to be out there with the team,” she said.

But from conditioning in August to preseason practice in the dead of winter and the spring season that saw the Lady Rebels finish with a 22-3-1 mark, there was one goal.

“We just told [the rest of the team] that we are not feeling this again, we are going to win state,” Hauberg said. “The whole team was so invested in this idea of winning state. Because we were senior-heavy, it also helped unite the team and play for this goal to win state.”

Hauberg is the only one of those seniors that will proceed to play college soccer, although each of the others would have had opportunities if pursued. 

She had a pair of surgeries soon after her final high school game and is hoping to be as close to healthy as possible when she reports to Furman on Aug. 1. She committed to the Paladins during her sophomore year.

“I fell in love with the place,” Hauberg said of Furman. “It was so pretty and exactly what I was looking for. I was able to find both an academic and athletic fit.”

Hauberg, like most teenagers, has changed her mind several times already about which career path to pursue. But for the time being, she wants to be a sports medicine physician.

“I definitely want to work in sports,” she said. “Even after I’m done with soccer, I want to still be able to work with athletes.”