In the movie Brian’s Song, Gale Sayers dedicates a game to Chicago Bears teammate Brian Piccolo, who is recovering from cancer surgery. The Bears promptly lose the game and Piccolo scolds Sayers saying, “When you dedicate a game to somebody, you’re supposed to win it, you big dummy.”

The Emmaus field hockey team knows how to dedicate a game to someone.

They dedicated themselves to playing for teammate Hailey Cook, who lost her battle with leukemia this past summer. Cook was remembered Saturday at the PIAA championship game at Cumberland Valley High School when the team came out wearing warm-up jerseys with Cook’s number 32 on them. The team went out and won the championship and Cook’s number 32 jersey was included in the official team picture with the trophy and gold medals.

“Everyone had their own ways of dealing with the sorrow of losing a teammate,” said Emmaus head coach Sue Butz-Stavin. “They can all express that in their own ways. Some were maybe a little bit closer, but I think we were all just – I don’t have a word for it - when you have a person that you train and has been a teammate with you for maybe since when they were playing with Lower Macungie Youth Association.

“She was just a beautiful young lady. She had a great smile and had a wit about her. In addition, she was a great teammate, and she was always there for everybody,” said coach Sue Butz-Stavin of Cook. “And yes, I think the girls took her fight and courage into how to battle this season and I think she was just a great inspiration for us.”

Emmaus won its 35th straight district championship and 15th state championship this season. Cook was a sophomore on the 2021 team that also won leagues, districts, and states and would have been a senior this season. Her classmate and team captain Emma Cari had perhaps the best game of her high school career Saturday and did it all with Cook’s memory front and center.

“There’s a senior that should be playing with us and we didn’t have her. We had her in our mind came out and went 100 percent and we dealt with it,” said Emma Cari.

“It feels amazing. Everyone played this game 100-percent for Haley,” said sophomore Addison Povilaitis, who scored the game’s only goal. “Everything was for her.”

Cook, who was a scholar-athlete, learned she had the disease during last year’s state tournament and was unable to play. Her number 32 jersey was on the bench with the team though the semifinals where their season ended. In what would have been her final high school game, Cook and her memory were with every player on the team and the win may give some closure, but will not erase any memories of the games when she was there on the field with her friends.

“She was definitely here, looking over us,” said junior Autumn Kernechel. “We all played for her today, knowing that she should have been on the team and so we all just played our hearts out for her.”