Elijah Murray is an ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Red Mountain High School for AZPreps365.com 

Red Mountain senior Sophee Incardone never intended to play flag football. In fact, the former soccer player turned kicker only got into the sport because of her best friend. 

“Honestly, it was my best friend Bailey,” Sophee said. “She had been scouting the sport for a while and really wanted to do it with somebody, and I'm always down to try new things, so I was like 100% I'll do it, and I ended up loving it.” 

However, Sophee also never intended to face such hardships along the way. After her dad, Brent, tragically passed away in 2021 due to complications with COVID-19, Sophee’s perseverance was tested early, and her mom, Shelley, was there to witness it all.

“She was very close with her dad; they were like best buddies,” Shelley said. “She would go everywhere with him, he would play sports with her, and they would go hunting together. He passed away at the beginning of her eighth-grade year from COVID, and she actually had a tournament for soccer that weekend and showed up to the hospital in her soccer uniform and looked at me and said, ‘I got to go to the game.’

“She never quit. She never stopped, and not in an unhealthy way. She is a lot like her dad in that if I can't do anything about it, I'm going to make myself proud. I'm going to make my family proud, and I'm going to push through.”

That mentality served Sophee well in the coming months and years as she tore her left ACL three months after her dad had passed. A year and a half later, she tore the meniscus on the same leg, which required two surgeries and a lot of support on the road to recovery. 

“Just devastation when it first happened," Shelley said. "Then her entire focus after each time was I need to get back to my team, and it was mainly when she got on football too, because she started football right after the first ACL.” 

Sophee’s perseverance, while tried and tested in such a short amount of time, would still face one of its toughest battles yet. In the first round of the 2024 flag football state playoffs, she completely tore her ACL and meniscus, this time on her right leg, making it the most grueling injury she had experienced. 

What lay ahead for her was an intensive recovery trail yet again, one that most athletes would go through knowing their playing days were over, but Sophee, just like the other times, never gave up. 

“I'm going to get emotional. It was horrible," Sophee said. "It was really, really sad. It was heartbreaking to me because I tried so hard to tell myself it wasn't my ACL, but I had a feeling it was. But I showed up for my team because that's all you can do at that point. It was sad, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.

“I feel like if I didn't have such supportive coaches, I probably wouldn't have come back. But coach Madison and coach Jackson were both very supportive, definitely helping me through my journey, and that really made a big impact on me.”

Red Mountain coach Julian Madison has seen Sophee rise, fall and subsequently rise again, and has witnessed her on-field struggles along the road to recovery firsthand.

“The main struggle I see is mental," Madison said. "This is her third time recovering from an ACL injury, so this isn't her first rodeo, but it's still tough to deal with not feeling as strong or as capable as you were before. There are times when she feels frustration, but there are so many more times when I can see her feeling gratitude for being able to be out there with her friends and being able to compete.

“I know it was hard for her to watch on the sidelines last year, so I mostly see a lot of hunger from her. I can tell that she has grown a lot from the last couple of years as she has stepped up as a leader for the team. She practices harder and speaks up a lot more to get the girls on the same page. Her presence as a leader and positive person has made the greatest impact for us.”

Sophee’s unrivaled resilience has paid off as she now ranks as a top 10 kicker in every Arizona category and is a crucial part of the Mountain Lions' strong start to the season. Now, with the support of her mom and two sisters, Aubree and Kortnee, alongside the everlasting memory of her dad, Sophee will look to make her family proud once more as Red Mountain pushes to secure that elusive state championship later this year.