Andy Emile said he had never heard of a “pinch-me moment” even though his life at West Aurora is full of them.
Emile moved here from the Democratic Republic of the Congo four years ago. This fall, the junior leads the Blackhawks (10-1-1) with 12 goals and has made countless new friends.
“Sometimes I look around and see how different it is to play here and to live and go to school here,” he said. “Where I come from we didn’t have much playing ground and it wasn’t as nice.
“When I came here in 2013 it felt so different. Now I feel more at home.”
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One thing that Emile brought with him was blazing speed and that’s helped him become such a potent scoring threat. The only problem was his teammates figuring out how to connect more with him. This season, they’ve found him often.
“Andy is a stud up there,” said senior midfielder Emanuel Acosta. “With his speed you can’t keep up with him and he’s aggressive and physical so he’s got all the weapons. Teams have a hard time dealing with him so we try to get him the ball as much as we can up top because he can defeat defenders. Whenever he has the ball, there’s danger.”
Emile is one of nearly a dozen players from different countries representing the Blackhawks this year, but chemistry has not been a problem.
“Having guys like Andy and others from different countries just makes us unique,” Acosta said. “I think Andy and anyone else would tell you it’s all about the team and we know what’s best for us to win is great chemistry and we’ve got that.”
Emile and fellow junior forward Patient Yuha, a native of Tanzania who had seven goals, have developed into quite the scoring tandem. The duo accounted for both goals in a 2-1 win against Batavia on Sept. 14.
“I didn’t know him long ago, but we learned about each other,” Yuha said. “We have that similarity of being from Africa so it helps to get to know each other. We’re different, but good teammates and we’re working well together.”
Emile doesn’t talk much about personal or team goals other than simply doing what it takes to continually get better and try to win games.
And while doing so he’s having a lot of fun. Though soccer may not be new to him, playing on an organized high school team is.
“I go to school and look forward to after school and seeing these guys,” he said. “They are like my family and we just try to learn and get better. We try to fix the wrong things and clean up the mistakes. I’m sure my teammates support me and I support them because they see what I did wrong and make me better.”
So far, he’s not doing much wrong though and the Blackhawks are reaping the benefits in the win column.
C.R. Walker is a freelance writer for The Beacon-News.