Dec. 25--PLANT CITY -- For 40 minutes, the Azteca soccer team ran under the sweltering sun of an unseasonably hot Christmas Eve day with only 10 players.
The missing 11th player wasn't tardy.
He was Lakeland Police Officer Arnulfo Crispin, 25, who was shot once in the head late the night of Dec. 18 and died early Wednesday.
Azteca was taking part in a quickly arranged memorial fundraiser, held on the green fields of Plant City's Otis M. Andrews Sports Complex, to honor Crispin and raise money for his family.
Lakeland police say Crispin was shot by Kyle Williams, 19, who is in jail on a charge of first-degree murder of a police officer. Crispin will be buried Tuesday at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lakeland after a funeral at the Victory Church in Lakeland.
"We played a man down as an honor to Arnulfo," said one of Crispin's cousins, Martin Carbajal. "It was hard. He was such a great player, and we kept looking to pass to him; he wasn't there. But he was there in spirit."
Eventually, Azteca won its game, 2-1, said Carbajal, but scores didn't really matter.
"This is such a terrible loss," said Carbajal. "We were crying out there on the field. He was such a great man. He was an inspiration."
Carbajal said his cousin played on the Aztecas for the past five years. But Crispin was known in Mulberry, where he grew up, and in Lakeland, where he was a police officer for 18 months.
Upward of 800 soccer players from Plant City, Lakeland and Mulberry were expected to come out Saturday, with the athletes paying $5 a head to honor a man widely known for his love of the game, said Stephen Rossiter, president of the Plant City Football Club.
Getting people to come out was not difficult, said Rossiter.
Crispin, he said, "was an incredible soccer player and role model."
One team wore white T-shirts with Crispin's No. 7 emblazoned on the back.
Others in the crowd wore black T-shirts with a white cross with Crispin's birth date -- Nov. 26, 1986 -- and the day he succumbed to his wound, Dec. 21, 2011.
The T-shirts were another way to raise money for Crispin's family, said Lee Chaddendon, who lived across the street from Crispin when the two were growing up in Mulberry.
Chaddendon said he ordered 150 shirts, which sold for $10 each, the proceeds going to Crispin's family.
By 1 p.m., he had 16 shirts left.
"I am going to order more shirts," he said.
After one of the matches, Aldo Lopez, 16, walked along the sideline, his face glistening with sweat.
He said he changed his Christmas Eve plans with his family to be here.
"My family was fine with that," said Lopez. "I came out here to honor Officer Crispin."
Copyright 2011 - Tampa Tribune, Fla.
