On the morning of June 12, 2016, the Pride were a thousand miles away from Orlando, fresh off a road match against the Western New York Flash the night before. They awoke in their hotel rooms to early reports of the nightclub shooting that took 49 lives.
News filtered to players in a blur, suspended for several hours as the team flew back, then pouring in a rush as they checked their phones for updates upon landing at the airport.
“The roads just seemed empty,” Pressley said. “It was a very eerie feeling. I don’t know, it just didn’t seem real.