Southwestern women's soccer senior Annie Ewton stood just outside of a crowd in the middle of Varsity Field as goalkeeper Johnna Campbell's punt cleared the scrum, finding its way to Ewton, who controlled the ball by tapping it to a teammate.
Ewton broke toward the goal while the ball zigzagged from Alexis Guajardo to Juliet Pridgen. The latter found Ewton racing up the middle of the field on a perfectly placed cross to score for the 3-1 lead in Southwestern's season-opening win against Texas Lutheran Univesity.
For Ewton, it was a straight line toward a goal in a collegiate career full of twists and turns.
As a first-year, Ewton appeared in 16 games, taking 10 shots and suffering one big blow. After suffering a cough through most of her first semester, Ewton finally went to see a doctor.
"It's Texas. Everyone gets a cough. I thought it was just allergies," Ewton says. "The doctor felt my throat and told me I needed to go in and get it checked out right away because there was a nodule."
The diagnosis: thyroid cancer.
"Like any team, we get involved with each other both personally and as a family," Head Women's Soccer Coach Linda Hamilton says. "So, as a coach, you learn to read some signs. Most of the time, they'll talk to you by text, so I knew she needed to talk to me about something important when she wanted to call. I was obviously very sad to hear about it, but she had a very positive attitude."
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, thyroid cancer is one of the most common cancers diagnosed in women. Fortunately, it's also one of the most treatable.
"My first reaction, which my doctors still give me a hard time about, was fear I was going to lose my hair," Ewton says. "Luckily with thyroid cancer, it's just a one-and-done surgery. Unfortunately, I had the rarest complication the hospital had ever seen with thyroid cancer."
Ewton suffered a serious condition called chylothorax, in which lymphatic fluid from her thoracic duct filled a bilateral leak into her chest cavity. The leakage restricted her lungs, created when the doctor clipped her thoracic duct, leaving her hospitalized for over a month. She returned to campus in time for the spring semester but was limited.
"Spending 30 or 40 days in the hospital, that in itself is difficult to recover from," Hamilton says. "She's a fighter, though, and she's been super positive throughout the whole ordeal."
"The entire time [in the hospital], I just wanted to know how fast I could get back out on the field," Ewton says. "When I [went] out there and couldn't play to my full ability, it was challenging mentally."
Ewton found support from her teammates and family while working to push through new limits.
"When I was in the hospital, teammates would come to see me and check on how I was doing," Ewton says. "And my mom was the backbone for me. I don't think I could have ever come back as strong without her. I'd go on runs, and she'd ask how it went and remind me I could get back to where I was if I worked hard enough."
More help arrived in the form of two new teammates. Team captain Maya Fuller transferred to Southwestern in the spring semester of her and Ewton's first year and moved into Ewton's dorm room.
"[Annie] was in the hospital when I moved in. When she came back, she was going through a lot," Fuller recalls. "She struggled a bit, obviously, but we became close living together and helping her through issues and anything that was happening."
Sarah McGinn transferred to Southwestern the following fall. The trio quickly became close friends.
"I wasn't there that first year, but I saw her positive outlook on everything," McGinn shares. "She's the definition of a team player. She's there for the team, and she wants to pick people up. Even if she's having a bad day, she wants to make sure everyone around her is having a good one."
After starting seven games as a first-year, Ewton came off the bench for 15 games as a sophomore, scoring two goals, including one game-winner. She appeared in seven games in her junior year but saw her playing time decrease as the season went on.
"In fairness to her in those two years, it'd taken a lot of time for her to fully recover to where she could function at a competitive level," Hamilton says. "She spent a lot of time not quite at 100%."
Ewton never lost her positive outlook, cheering her teammates on from the bench as Southwestern won the program's first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) championship.
"I was back to playing but still going through the trauma of everything that happened and still worrying about a recurrence," Ewton says. "I was doing everything I could to support the team. After watching Mary Cardone make that last save, I was so proud of every girl on the field because we all worked so hard for it."
The victory motivated Ewton to push herself for a solid senior season. She spent the spring and summer training, even as the COVID pandemic shut down the campus and threatened her final year.
"I'm proud of her. Many people would've gotten discouraged and made excuses, but I watched her work so hard this summer. She was out there every single day," McGinn says. "It didn't matter if it was early or too hot. She was out there working."
After months of working out and finally feeling back to peak form, Ewton had another setback.
"I had a recurrence last summer, which meant another surgery," Ewton says.
"I was just hoping it wouldn't hold her back," Hamilton says. "You know, it's one thing to have a setback and fight your way through it. It's another to keep having them. You know, with COVID and all the weird stuff out of her control, I just wanted to make sure it didn't keep her from playing her last season."
The surgery would shut her down for two weeks, leaving enough scar tissue to cause lingering shoulder and neck problems long into her final season. Still, when it came time to schedule the surgery, Ewton was unfazed.
"She made us feel calm about it, and we weren't even the ones going through it," Fuller says. "We were like, 'Oh my God, one of our best friends has cancer again,' and she was like, 'It's no big deal.'"
"When I told people we were going to visit a friend before surgery, they were like, 'I'm sorry. That's so scary,'" McGinn remembers. "But I'd tell them if they'd met Annie, they wouldn't be scared because she never is."
Fuller and McGinn spent the weekend with Ewton like any other, looking forward to one last season together.
"It's always been the people I've met through soccer that have made me love the game and stick around," Ewton says. "My favorite moments are the times I get to spend with my two best friends, Maya and Sarah. Especially when we're all succeeding."
When athletics resumed in the spring, Ewton played some of her best soccer, earning a starting spot on a team returning most of its championship core.
"I finally felt back in shape and able to contribute physically more than I have in the past," Ewton says. "This year has been a blessing to play as long as I have. It's a redemption story. What I love about soccer is it can change at any second. You can make a few mistakes, have a few setbacks, but that one time you put that perfect ball in, it's all worth it."
Ewton found her perfect moment in the first game of her senior season, then another in delivering an assist in Southwestern's 1-0 win over Schreiner.
"I'm just happy to see the success come. Athletics is a funny game. You can do all the work and still not have the reward," Hamilton says. "It's nice to see her have an assist and a goal through all of this. She earned it. She made it happen through her hard work."
Now graduated, Ewton hopes to share such perfect moments and her love of the game with kids as a coach.
"I've learned a lot of life lessons through soccer, especially with everything I've been through. I hope I can get the kids I coach to love the game and stick with it because it's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done," Ewton says. "I know I'm only 22, but I feel like I've lived a couple of lifetimes just through the things I've been through, and soccer is something I've always been able to go back to and be thankful for."