The North Carolina men’s soccer team, seconds after winning its first game of the season in overtime Friday night, formed a boisterous mob on Fetzer Field.
Andy Craven could only watch.
Craven, the team’s leading goal scorer in 2012, saw his teammates flood off the bench to join the powder-blue crush. Minutes later, with his left leg stretched out on a medical cart, Craven dismounted and hobbled toward the locker room on crutches.
“It’s pretty painful that I can’t get out there and play, but it’s not in any selfish way,” Craven said by phone Tuesday, nearly a week removed from season-ending foot surgery. “That doesn’t deter me at all from doing the best for the team and being there.”
Craven, who will return in 2014 for his fifth and final year of NCAA eligibility, faces a three-month recovery after doctors reattached a tendon in his left foot Aug. 25. He hurt his foot this spring and recently suffered a fracture, which broke through scar tissue on the outside of his foot.
“I’ve kind of just accepted my injury and the process that it takes to recover,” the 2012 College of Charleston transfer said. “I’m trying not to be negative in any light.”
Soon after learning about Craven’s fate, UNC’s attack absorbed another sharp blow with the loss of fellow forward Rob Lovejoy, who will likely miss the season with a pinched nerve in his left leg.
UNC’s second-leading scorer in 2012, Lovejoy said he could play at limited strength, but wouldn’t be healthy enough to be effective. The Greensboro native received a cortisone shot last week and will wait to see how his leg responds to treatment.
“I’m over that whole feeling-sorry-for-myself stage,” Lovejoy said, who plans to return in 2014 if he sits out this season. “I’ve met some great people here at UNC, and my parents and other family members really help me through these tough times.”
