Local lost and found story has a very nice ring to it

Placer High schooler Taylor Rick, 16, never thought that her Nov. 15 soccer game would result in a frantic search for a precious family heirloom. Taylor was wearing a high school class ring when the soccer game began that day. The ring had been purchased by Taylor's grandmother, Maureen Denton, in 1958. The ring was passed down from Maureen to her two daughters, Paige and Trisha. Both sisters wore it in high school.When it came time for Taylor to pick out her high school ring, Trisha Rick, Taylor's mother, said she suggested Taylor wear her grandmother's ring as well. Taylor's aunt mailed her the ring, which fit perfectly, and Taylor wore it every day, Trisha said. On Nov. 15, Taylor forgot to remove the ring before going onto the soccer field for her 49er United Soccer League game. At one point the referee caught a glimpse of the sun shining off the gold. She was called off the field and told to put the ring away. Taylor put the ring into a teammate's soccer bag, mistaking it for her own."I was frustrated that the ref caught me and I wasn't really thinking what I was doing," Taylor said. "I was just thinking I wanted to get back to the game." The Ricks had a family party to attend later that day in the Bay Area, and when Taylor went home to get ready, she couldn't find the ring anywhere. "I was so scared and I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'" Taylor said. "(I was) just going through all my stuff. I destroyed my room basically looking for it. I knew it was really important to my family and my mom, and I felt really bad."A frantic weekend search ensued, said Trisha, Pharmacy Operations Manager at Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital. She and Taylor stayed home from the party and combed Winchester Field, where the game had been, for the ring. They put up fliers at the field as well as at Railhead Park where local soccer teams practice, in hopes of getting a call if someone found the ring. Trisha also put out an ad in the Auburn Journal, and notified a local pawnshop to be on the lookout for the ring. On Nov. 17 Trisha took time off work to put up more fliers and rented a metal detector from Pioneer Motherlode Mining Supply. She went back to Winchester Field for an hour to search before it got dark. While she was there, Trisha got a call from her husband, Kevin Rick, letting her know that the ring had been found in one of Taylor's teammate's soccer bags. Taylor said she was ecstatic when she heard the news."I was so excited!" Taylor said. "I thought I would never see it again. I was jumping up and down, really excited, relieved - like a whole weight was lifted off." Denton, who works for Placer County Water Agency, heard the whole story from Trisha, who came to see Denton at work, and said she was proud of her daughter and the amount of work she put into finding the ring. "It was really cute because Trisha showed up at five to 5 (p.m.) on Monday. She goes, 'Mom, I really need a hug ... Now you need to sit down so I can tell you a story,'" Denton said. "She was telling me this story and I just couldn't believe everything she had done."Trisha said she was amazed at the amount of support the community offered her family in finding the ring. Shannon O'Flaherty, Taylor's teammate, text messaged the girls on the team and asked them to double check their bags for the heirloom."I felt like I had to because Taylor's like a really good friend of mine, and it was her grandmother's ring," O'Flaherty said. "And she's always talking about how …. it's a family heirloom, and you could tell from her voice how worried they were."A foothills-area metal detectorist, who wishes to be unnamed for security purposes, called the Rick family Tuesday morning and offered to go to Winchester Field to look for the ring. She spent two hours looking, but left when she did not find it. That day she got a call from Trisha saying the heirloom had been located. Trisha said she is happy the story ended the way it did, because the family thought the ring was lost for good. She said she feels this situation provided Taylor with a very important lesson."You have to exhaust all possibilities, and persevere and never give up because we totally found it!" Trisha said. Taylor agrees with her mom and said she will be even more careful with the ring now."I won't bring it to soccer, ever!" she said.