‘Never want to let them down’

Edmund Burke is known for having said, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

Still suffering the pain of a pinkie toe she’d broken 17 days earlier, Nansemond River High School’s Kendall Webster might have been expected to just sit out the end of her team’s soccer season.

Instead, she decided to contribute what she could, and she wound up with two goals, including the game-winner, in the conference tournament title game against archrival King’s Fork High School.

Instead of using her injured foot, Webster used her head, scoring both goals with headers.

Her performance made her the 2013-14 school year’s final Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

“I felt awesome,” she said of the title game. “I felt really good, since I got the starting goal from Emily Leverone’s kick.”

Both of Webster’s goals came after corner kicks, and her parents, George and Theresa Webster, were just arriving at the game when they saw her head in the first one.

“I was beside myself,” George Webster said. “I was excited.”

Though Kendall Webster had rested for a week and a half following the injury suffered in a regular-season game, it still affected her play. Running was difficult, because the crease on her cleat would press into the toe.

“It would just be a sharp pain every step I took,” she said.

Lady Warriors coach Darryl Yandle said her play up and down the field was not as strong as it had been, but she found a way to contribute.

“She’s fairly tall for a girl, and she’s not afraid to head it, so that kind of gives her the advantage, and she had to be in the right place at the right time,” he said.

He took Webster out to rest her in the second half, but she later pleaded to go back in, and Yandle relented.

Theresa Webster described the game-winner: “Dawn Wright kicked that beautiful corner kick, and Kendall just happened to be right there where she always is.”

Kendall said she and her teammates wanted the win badly.

“Since Nansemond River (girls’ soccer) has never lost to a Suffolk school, it was a lot of pressure on us,” she said. “We wanted to fulfill it for our coach, but also fulfill it for us. We didn’t want to give that up.”

Webster has played soccer for nine years, dating back to when her mom signed her up for an Upward sports team. In the years since, Webster has tackled greater challenges, playing for advanced, select and elite travel teams, including an all-boys team. She noted she got her competitive spirit from her father.

Webster also participates in cross country and her favorite sport, swimming, but still has an enduring love for soccer and a motivation— her team — to give her best on the field, whether injured or healthy.

“I never want to let them down,” she said.