Happy to Be Back: Espe and FSHA Face San Clemente in CIF-SS Division I Finals

It was all getting to be too much for Lindsey Espe to handle.

All those games spent on the bench. All the hard work in practice that for some reason wasn’t translating to playing time on the field.

Espe began the year as Flintridge Sacred Heart’s starting goalkeeper, but after a disastrous first half during a 4-3 loss at Harvard-Westlake on Jan. 24, she was relegated to backup duties in favor of freshman Sami Dier.

The transition from starter to backup was a difficult one — so difficult that it made her want to quit the team. But her parents, along with Tologs co-captains Alyssa Conti and Natalie Zeenni, convinced her that wasn’t an option. So Espe stuck it out and waited for a shot at redemption.

And now with the third-seeded Tologs set to face No. 1 San Clemente on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Mission Viejo High for the CIF-Southern Section Division I title, Espe is back where she feels she belongs: in goal.

Espe got her job back when Dier broke her wrist during the final seconds of Flintridge Sacred Heart’s quarterfinal win over Tesoro, completing her path from starter to backup to second round hero to backup again to finally starter.

“Umm interesting,” Espe said of her season. “It’s been very frustrating, losing my starting position. … It’s been a personal struggle. This isn’t the way I wanted to get my spot back, obviously.

“ … But I’m glad that I’m getting the playing time, obviously. I’m so excited for (Friday), this is the goal to get this far and to play for No. 1 in the nation."

Espe, a 5-foot-11 junior, is all smiles now, but a month ago there wouldn’t have been any semblance of a grin on her face.

Espe was pulled out of goal after 40 minutes of the Tologs’ loss at Harvard-Westlake. She gave up two first half goals and said that the jitters of playing at the hostile road venue led to her struggles.

“I think it was just nerves,” she said. “I was nervous, my first time ever playing Harvard-Westlake at their house, and I just think it got the best of me.”

Up until that game, Espe had allowed six goals in 13 games and had recorded 27 saves. But for the Flintridge Sacred Heart coaching staff, that half at Harvard-Westlake was the tipping point to prompt a permanent change in goal.

“Sami had been more consistent,” Tologs co-coach Frank Pace said. “Simple as that. It was as simple as consistency.

“ … We changed our defensive alignment, we changed our goalkeeper. We wanted to bring a little more stability to our goalkeeping situation. And that worked, we went seven games in a row without a loss."

While the Tologs enjoyed success on the field, Espe personally struggled with her new role.

“There’s definitely those breaking points where you’re just like, ‘I don’t know if I can sit on another bench just watching my team go and play, and know that I’m sitting there for 80 minutes doing nothing,’ ” Espe said.

Right before the start of the Tologs’ playoff run, Espe contemplated quitting the team. But she talked it over with her parents, and they were adamant that she shouldn’t give up. Conti and Zeenni had a similar response during their conversation.

“They were like, ‘What happens if Sam gets hurt? We want you, we know you can do it,’ ” Espe said. “I just knew that I couldn’t do that to my team. Weirdly enough, a week later Sam breaks her hand, and they need me.”

In her first start since the Harvard-Westlake game, Espe made six saves in a 1-0 overtime win over Esperanza in the semifinals. And two games earlier, with Dier still healthy, Espe played a huge roll in keeping the Tologs’ championship hopes alive. Espe came off the bench to save three penalty kicks in a second round win at Aliso Niguel.

“She’s got too much character to quit,” Pace said. “She may have wanted her to quit. In her mind she said that’ll be the easy way out of this, but Lindsey doesn’t take the easy way out.

“Lindsey’s a hard worker; Lindsey’s a good kid. This game means too much to Lindsey. We’ve all felt that we’d want to quit at some times, but deep down she didn’t really want to quit. And had she quit, she wouldn’t be in goal in the CIF championship game.”

The route to that end point might not have been what she envisioned at the start of the season, but either way, it’ll be up to Espe to deliver the Tologs their first-ever CIF-SS division title. And who knows? Maybe the extra adversity will make a potential championship celebration all the more sweet.

“I definitely feel that I’ve become a stronger person because of it,” Espe said. “(It) has definitely been difficult, but definitely made me a lot stronger.”