/ Courtesy Laurie Angree

Garrett Roth, center, plays for his Blue Lightning team in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Garrett again lined up for his shot. The opposing goalie, Chasen Ozawa, a third-grader at Meadows Elementary, would later tell his dad, Mitch, a 47-year-old banking executive, he wasn't quite sure what to do. Should he play it for all he was worth? Or should he let Garrett score? Wait — was that fair to Garrett? Fair to Garrett's team? Fair, for that matter, to his own team?

"Chasen is a kid who’s well aware of those with special needs," Mitch said. "He sees them in his classroom. This is a guy who plays soccer, he plays club baseball, he plays fall-ball baseball, he plays basketball, he is a sports competitor — and yet he has a huge heart for people who he feels are less fortunate or have issues. He realizes they don’t have the same advantages he does.

"That’s why he got out there and he struggled. He wasn’t sure how he should do this. He finally thought, 'He's playing, I'm playing,'" and resolved to play it straight up. Garrett was going to give it his best shot; if the shot got near the goal, Chasen was going to try to stop it.

The ball was positioned on the spot. The kids and parents grew suddenly very quiet. The whistle blew.

Garrett ran right up and kicked the ball. He kicked it straight toward the goal. But just not hard enough.

Chasen stopped the ball's roll, and the game was over, Manhattan United a 4-3 winner.

The Manhattan United boys did not tear off by themselves to celebrate. Instead, on their own accord, they surrounded Garrett to congratulate him.

"I gave him a high-five," said Merrick Wong, another Meadows third-grader. "I was thinking he did a good job."

Chasen Ozawa told his dad, "I’m happy my team won, but I’m happy he tried hard and he got a chance to kick."

Of course the Blue Lightning crew, kids and adults, joined in to celebrate Garrett's good and great effort as well, Mike Roth saying, "Even though we lost, it felt like we won."

He also said, "You never hear the story where things are done because it was the right thing to do. About working with integrity. This was teaching. It was," and this from a USC guy, "a John Wooden moment."

He also said, "It's really what sport is about. You're there to help mold the kids to play through adversity."

As for Garrett, even though his shot didn't go far enough, he threw his hands up, touchdown-style, as soon as he kicked the ball. It went straight and true, and that was plenty good enough for an 8-year-old boy.

And then the other kids came over to tell him, good job. And that, he said, felt "so, so, so good."

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