Ava Badallo winced fiercely as she fell to her knees.

The Bloomfield Hills senior clutched her right hand and continued to agonize in pain near midfield at Demartin Soccer Complex. And then she collapsed onto the grass as she waited for trainers Robert Robine and Monica Reiche to rescue her. 

Seconds earlier, she was aggressively going for a 50-50 ball during the opening overtime of the Division 1 girls soccer state championship at Michigan State.

A Northville defender had slipped on the play, and she was fine. And then Badallo slipped as well. Only the West Virginia Wesleyan signee used her right hand to brace her fall and then she awkwardly bent back her thumb. 

"I was like, 'Oh, this really hurt!'" Badallo said. "I thought it was broken." 

Referee Jeremy Wittrock raised up his arms and crossed them to signal for the clock to stop winding. 

There were 31 seconds left in the period, and another 10 minutes were coming up, and it looked like the Black Hawks were going to finish the match without one of their best goal scorers. 

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It was the state final. Against the No. 1-ranked team in Michigan. Bloomfield Hills was the underdogs. Badallo needed to be on the field. The midfielder had to finish the game with her teammates. 

And — WHAT? — it was Badallo leaving hurt? Usually, it's her plays on the ball that send opponents out of the game with bumps and bruises. She's the one who lays the boom. It's not the other way around. Just ask her teammates. She's the one who tackles them after goals. She's always starting dogpiles after hero moments. 

It doesn't matter who's hero moments they are. Esther Rosett's. Drew Martin's. Emma Henry's. Avary Hall's. She's even had her own hero moments throughout the postseason. Remember when she slotted that perfect pass to Rosett for the game-winning goal against defending state champion Hartland to win the Black Hawks their first-ever regional title? 

Yeah, there's no way Badallo could leave the game with an injury in overtime. Bloomfield Hills couldn't afford to lose someone like her. She needed to be there for more hero moments. 

And she had already had one early in the second half of Friday's match vs. the Mustangs. 

Brooke Green dribbled the ball down the near sideline. She outraced Northville's Brooke Pendleton. And then she faked out Northville's Lauren Moraitis with a deke to her right. 

Green had made it to the near post with just one defender left. She passed it under the arm of Northville's Caroline Meloche, who leaned to her left to try and get a body on the cross, and then the ball sailed in front of the net. 

Badallo bashed into it with a full head of steam, and the goal put Bloomfield Hills ahead 1-0 in the 45th minute. 

"When she beat two defenders out wide, I was like, 'I have to get to this. This is going to be one of our only chances of the game.'" Badallo said. "We did have a lot of chances, in the end, but I was like, 'We have to capitalize on this one specifically.' I just went in full-on. 

"I don't even know what it hit. I don't even know if it hit my foot. I don't even know if it went top right. I just saw it hit the back of the net, and Brooke started celebrating with me, and it was a crazy feeling." 

Green was proud to be the one who tackled Badallo this time. She grabbed a hold of Badallo and flung her down. Moments later, Rosett and Alice Spiegel jumped on top of them, and the dogpile was started. 

That proved to be a pivotal moment for the No. 12 Black Hawks. Not only because it was Green starting the pile instead of Badallo but because the scoring was coming at a premium for both teams. 

Twice, Bloomfield Hills had goals erased because of off-side calls. Martin's deep boomer trickled in the goal but was waved off. And Hall's rebound at the near post was taken off the scoreboard, too. 

And then Moraitis launched a corner kick into the penalty box that Northville's Kate Gonzalez headed in to knot the score in the 64th minute. 

Bloomfield Hills could've been ahead, 3-1. Instead, it was a tied score to end regulation. And it was a tied score when Badallo exited the match with a thumb injury late in the first overtime. 

During the intermission, Reiche vigorously wrapped Badallo's right hand, from her thumb to halfway up her forearm, in black medical tape. 

"As she was wrapping it, 'I like was like,' Come on! Come on now! Let's wrap it quick!'" Badallo said. "I just knew I had to get back in. I said, 'Can I go back out there?' They were like, 'Are you sure? Are you ready?'

"I just had to go back in. I said, 'Get me back in there.'"

The pain was still there as Badallo returned for another back-and-forth 10 minutes of overtime where no goals were scored and no winner was determined. 

But that pain seemed to subsist for Badallo during the penalty kick shootout. 

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Martin buried the first attempt past Northville goalie Simran Magnan. 

And then, while diving to her left, Bloomfield Hills keeper Jenica Opdahl got two hands on Moraitis' attempt. 

The next round saw Rosett make hers as well as Meloche put one in for the Mustangs. 

Emma Merchant hit hers with the inside of her right foot to push it into the right side of the net for the Black Hawks, while Opdahl, once again, dove and got one hand on Reese Heaton's attempt near the left post. 

And so this was it. Bloomfield Hills needed to make just one final penalty kick to not only win the state championship but win the school's first-ever state title in a team sport since the school district merged Andover and Lahser eight years ago. 

And who else could it be attempting the kick? 

"Every single time, I've always gone bottom left, and I didn't change my mind this time," Badallo said. "With Jenica coming up with those two amazing saves, and they were huge for us, it was like, 'I'm winning this, or at least we'll still have a chance to win it if I miss.' That gave me more confidence and motivation. 

"I knew I needed to get this into the back of the net, and I knew I was going to the bottom left. Even if the goalie were to move a certain way, I couldn't change my mind now because it'd mess me up. 

"I thought to myself, 'I'm going bottom left, and this is going in.'"

Magnan initially jumped to her right. And the ball sailed into a wide-open net on the opposite side. 

And then she went to the bottom of the dogpile. 

It was Green who got her again as they celebrated the 2-1 victory. 

"It was just insane," Green said. "I was on the sideline watching her shot go in, and I just jumped up and ran right on top of her. We all dogpiled again. We all couldn't breathe because we were right on top of each other. It was great."

Coach Alan Zakaria said he was prepared to adjust his lineup had Badallo not been able to return. 

But he wasn't shocked she gutted out the pain and finished the match. 

Nor was the eighth-year coach surprised she booted in the game-winner. 

"She is just an incredible player, and what a great student-athlete," Zakaria said. "She's so coachable, so lovely. She just loves the game, and she's just a soccer aficionado. She just loves to play soccer. 

"To see her finish that off, nothing could make me prouder as a coach."

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Mobbed by media requests, Badallo was one of the final Black Hawks to exit the pitch and finally get to celebrate with her classmates, family and friends at the athletics plaza's entrance just south of the field. 

But the wait was worth it. 

The senior had left her mark on the program, even though the state championship had left its mark on her right thumb. 

Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on Twitter @folsombrandonj.