ROUND ROCK, Texas — For Kevin Esquivel, Roger Ruiz, Jeremiah Groenke and Bob Niyonkuru, goals are at the center of their lives as busy soccer players, who once joined the Round Rock-based club team Galaxy Soccer Club with their friend Andrew Fonseca Reyes.
"He would always be cracking jokes, a funny guy," Groenke said. "But he would flip a switch when we play, and he would be hard working, kind of like a leader for the team."
Reyes' coach Oumar Djiba said he was driven for a reason.
"He was trying to go to Mexico and play professionally," Djiba said. "So that was his goal. He was saying, like before he actually graduated high school, he wanted to go try out in Mexico and see if he can make the teams out there so he can actually get a salary or something to help his family out."
Esquivel remembers hearing about his friend's dreams.
"He always wanted to like help out his parents, make them have a better lifestyle because he didn't like seeing them struggle a lot," Esquivel said.
They are dreams that will not come to fruition, after a deadly crash on Aug. 7 with four people, including Reyes, inside a stolen car.
According to an affidavit, Jeremy Giron Hernandez was driving a stolen Hyundai and sped through an attempted traffic stop by an officer. The officer stopped pursuing him for safety reasons after he ran a red light at Hart Lane and Far West Boulevard.
About a minute later, police reported a crash happened involving the Hyundai in the 6800 block of Hart Lane. Police returned to the scene and found Reyes unconscious with an active video recording on his iPhone.
The driver and two passengers left the scene, but Fonseca Reyes was taken to a hospital and died on Aug. 8.
"He must have been with the wrong group or something because that's not something that he would just, he wouldn't make those decisions, I don't think," Groenke said. "It was like they were made for him or something."
"That doesn't define Andrew at all. At the end of the day, he was a very loyal friend, good friend and hard worker," Esquivel said.
Giron Hernandez has since charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident, Reyes' former teammates are left to reflect on Reyes and what could have been.
"He put in all that time and effort and it's gone in, like, an instant," Groenke said.
They are now doing their part to keep striving for him.
"We know how hard he worked and he got stopped so easily, so now we can carry his hard work into our own lives," Groenke said. "And try to honor him and think of him whenever we can."