Ho-Chunk soccer girls make their friendship part of the game
By Ken Luchterhand
There are four Ho-Chunk girls in Baraboo who fly around the soccer field, making shots, bumping into opposing players and making it all look fun.
They are having fun because their love for soccer and their friendship for each other, both on the field and off.
The four girls are Destina Warner, Isabella DuBray, Loraine Reyes and Isabel Rosado.
Destina Warner has been playing soccer since she was in second grade. She’s now a freshman and on the junior varsity soccer team for Baraboo High School. She is the daughter of Jon and Stephanie Warner.
Other sports she has participated in includes gymnastics and boxing.
“Hopefully I will get to letter this year in soccer,” she said. Usually she gets to play the entire 80 minutes during a soccer match.
“I like my position (goalkeeper and midfield),” she said. “I also like the ‘team’ aspect – working as a team.”
What has helped her in her athletic abilities is that she is ambidextrous, about to work fluently with either foot or arm, she said.
Isabella DuBray is a sophomore who plays midfield and forward. She is the daughter of Dr. Amy Delong.
She loves soccer and has been playing the game for six years.
“It teaches you how to work together toward a common goal, regardless of how you feel toward about each other,” she said. “You’re a team and you need to get along.”
She says she can run both sides during soccer play and she even scored a goal two games ago.
Isabella also likes to swim and ride bicycle. She can be found competing in triathlons in summer.
“I’m very proud of them,” said her mother, Amy DeLong. “It’s nice to be in the stands and see other Ho-Chunk families there. It’s a physically demanding sport. I love to see our girls out there working hard and working as a team.”
Loraine Reyes is also a sophomore, playing defender and midfield. She is the daughter of Patty Reyes.
She’s been playing soccer her whole life, mainly due to her family being avid soccer fanatics. She’s been playing six years on a team.
“I like it because it’s nice to do something that you love and be around the people you love.”
She plays flute in the high school band and went to New York City last year with the band.
She also likes to play lacrosse. The only game she doesn’t like is softball.
“I’ll try just about any sport,” she said.
Isabel Rosado is a junior, the oldest of the group, but also the shortest, she confidently points out. At 4’ 11”, she and her teammates said that she also is the most dominant, ready to take out an opponent or take a dive in the grass for a good reason.
She plays midfield and forward and is the daughter of Veronica Espinosa.
Isabel considers herself the “clown” of the group and also known as “Mama.”
“I make everyone nervous and embarrassed,” she said.
She plays soccer all year round, even during winter months at KEVA Sports Center. She’s even been invited to play for an over 18 club.
“Isabel is a junior in high school, works part time, and still manages to go to practice and participate in the games, she also babysits her little cousin—if Isabel has the day free,” said Veronica L. Espinoza, her grandmother. “She’s played soccer since she was in grade school. She enjoys soccer so much, she traveled with her mother and stepfather to the Washington D.C. area last summer to watch a professional soccer game. Her favorite team, Barcelona, was playing and her favorite players Lionel Messi and Neymar Santos were members of the team. I am very proud of her.”
And her expertise has earned her the honor of teaching at “SoccerFest,” an annual event in Baraboo to teach younger people how to play the game and sharpen their skills.
“What the coach tells us is that we are students before we’re athletes,” she said.
Baraboo is a great school, providing for athletics for the students and working with the Baraboo Soccer Club and the Booster Club, she said.
“They are all dedicated. Sometimes they have to get up at 5 a.m. for a game being played at 7 a.m. in a tournament,” said Destina’s father, Jon Warner, an avid supporter of youth soccer. “When they’re not playing here (at the school), they’re playing with the Baraboo Soccer Club.”
The parents are extremely supportive, he said. One thing that they all have noticed is that their skills and abilities, both as a team and individually, have improved every year.
“The Baraboo Soccer Club has helped them to be better players. If parents want their children to play a sport they should look into private clubs,” Jon Warner said. “Baraboo High School has a great program that ensures academic and athletic success. The field is being well used by Ho-Chunk Nation members in all the outdoor athletics.”
They hope to be able to try out and play soccer for the Wisconsin team at the annual North American Indigenous Games. The North American Indigenous Games is a multi-sport event involving indigenous North American athletes staged intermittently since 1990. Representatives from 13 provinces and territories in Canada and 13 regions in the United States play in the games.
In 2014, Isabella was qualified for the Wisconsin swimming team for the Indigenous Games. However, the team was first cancelled, then given the green light, but too late for her to change her plans.
“I am sure they are all dedicated to school and to playing soccer and to other interests in their young lives,” Espinosa said. “We really have to give credit to these young Ho-Chunk ladies for their accomplishments. They play hard and look like they are having fun.”
Whether Destina, Isabella, Loraine and Isabel are knocking soccer balls into the net, attending classes or just hanging out, the four girls have shown that sometimes friendship goes beyond actions, and even words.
“We are just really awesome,” Destina said.
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