Lincoln-Way East’s Kamden Williams plays soccer with an extra dose of passion that comes from having the sport he loves taken away from him for two years.
After he suffered head injuries in grade school, Williams’ mother told him his soccer career was over. He sat out his first two seasons of high school before convincing his mom to let him give it another shot.
“I got two bad concussions when I was younger,” Williams said. “I got one in eighth grade and my mom was like, ‘We’re done with this.’
“I kind of found my identity in soccer my whole life. Whenever someone asked me who I was, I’d say my name and that I was a soccer player. For those two years, I didn’t have anything to say. I really missed the game.”
Williams has plenty to say now. The senior midfielder has already scored six goals this season, including two Thursday night as he led the Griffins to a 3-1 win over Lemont in the Windy City Ram Classic championship game at Reavis in Burbank.
Josh Mensching also scored and Noah Brown made three saves for Lincoln-Way East (5-0), which won the 32-team tournament for the first time.
Andrew Guzy had the goal for Lemont (4-1), off an assist from Giovanni Ochoa.
Williams’ comeback began the day before tryouts last fall, when a classmate got the ball rolling between Williams and Lincoln-Way East coach Matthew Ribbens.
“One of my players was like, ‘Hey, I think he wants to play,’” Ribbens said of Williams. “So, I told him to come out for tryouts. Then I come to find out that in his middle school years he was this great player that we’re seeing now.
“His ceiling is so high.”
Williams said he returned to the soccer field with no fear, in spite of his previous injuries.
“I just try to erase those things from my mind,” Williams said. “I pray before every game and I just hope everything turns out well.”
It turned out just fine Thursday night.
The Griffins trailed 1-0 at halftime as Guzy scored an electric goal for Lemont in the 16th minute, ripping a shot into the top left corner of the net.
But Lincoln-Way East scored three times in the first 11 minutes of the second half.
After Williams sped past the defense for the tying goal, Mensching gave the Griffins the lead. Owen Bohren then drew a foul in the box and Williams converted the penalty kick to make it 3-1.
In the middle of all that action, a deer dashed onto the field shortly before Mensching’s go-ahead goal.
A rally deer?
“Maybe he was our mascot,” Williams said.
Lincoln-Way East, meanwhile, has finished under .500 each of the last five seasons. This year’s team is full of seniors, like Mensching, who took their lumps the past few years.
Thursday, it all seemed worth it as they sported the tournament’s championship rings.
“It’s an achievement that I honestly never thought I could get,” Mensching said. “But the team worked hard all through the summer, put in the work in the mornings, and it paid off in the end.”
Williams helped make it happen. After his long layoff, he feels like himself again.
“Endurance was definitely the toughest thing to get back,” Williams said. “At the beginning of last season, we came to this tournament and lost in the second round. I wasn’t even playing much.
“But toward the end of the year, I started to find my form again and I just carried that over into this year.”
And now, Williams is experiencing feelings of glory again.
“I missed the passion of scoring a goal,” he said. “You saw I scored the goal (Thursday) and the whole team was running to the corner. It’s making the whole team happy.
“Not just playing for yourself but everybody around you.”
