CHILI, N.Y. -- For seven years, Brittanee Drexel’s friends prayed relentlessly.

“It’s something not a day goes by you don’t think about it,” Drexel’s former soccer coach Dave Veltre said. “You talk about it all the time. You just pray. It’s something that connects all of us.”

For seven years, they kept the faith she was still alive.

“You have to hold out for hope, no matter what,” Drexel’s good friend and long-time soccer teammate Katya Rosien said. “It was the only way to get through these last seven years.”

That hope for the best came to an end Wednesday, as the FBI announced they believe Drexel had been held against her will and killed after vanishing in 2009.

“I knew they were going to tell us something big, but I didn’t expect it to be that,” Rosien said.

Rosien said the news comes as a shock. Drexel’s outgoing personality and smile is still so clear in her mind. 

“She was such a spitfire on the field, off the field,” Rosien said. “She was this little thing who had no idea that she was this tiny thing. She thought she was like a giant. Just full of life, love, and energy. Just fun, someone you always wanted to be around.”

Veltre coached Drexel from the time she was 11 until she disappeared. He called the team one big family and can still see her zipping across the field.

“There was one play I remember she lost a barrette in her hair and she was dribbling the ball and she bent down, picked up the barrette as she was dribbling, put it back in her hair and she scored a goal,” Veltre said. “It was pretty cool. She was tough on the field, but off the field just a happy go-lucky kid.”

They said however that Wednesday's news doesn’t bring them complete closure.

“You want closure, but you want to know why this happened,” Veltre said. “It’s one thing to say that the girl is gone, but you want to know why is she gone, how did it happen. I think that’s probably the biggest thing everybody is thinking about, especially Britanee’s family.”

Rosien agreed.

“There’s pieces that are definitely missing in this story, so I don’t think until we’re able to physically able to bring her home and kind of put this to rest that we’ll every feel okay,” Rosien said.

While they still wait for more news to come, they plan to continue leaning on each other, remembering she will always be alive in their hearts.

“I hope that I can continue to support her family and love her family and that us as a community can come together for them and help them move forward,” Rosien said.