SEATTLE — Quick, clear thinking helped Seattle Reign FC forward Jordyn Huitema get to safety during a May home invasion. She said she hid and listened behind a locked door as multiple men ransacked the bedroom she’d exited seconds earlier.

“Just survive,” Huitema said when asked what was going through her mind. “I just hope that they don’t find me. I hope that I’m OK at the end of this.”

A home shared by Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez and Huitema, both 24, was one of four in the Seattle area hit by a string of home burglaries over the span of several months beginning in February, according to charging documents. Mariners pitcher Luis Castillo had his home burglarized twice. The homes of L.A. Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell and former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman were broken into. Several of Sherman’s family members were reportedly at home and held at gunpoint.

Court documents said the offenders also targeted, but did not rob, Mariners legend Edgar Martinez.

Last week the King County Prosecutor’s Office announced Earl Riley, 21, had been charged with four counts of residential burglary and one count of first-degree robbery. GPS phone records placed Riley near the scenes of all four burglaries and prosecutors found objects taken from the athletes’ homes among Riley’s belongings and his family’s.

All of the armed break-ins are believed to have been committed by the same two men. One of the suspects has not been publicly identified.

The burglary Huitema was present for occurred May 1. The Mariners were beginning a six-game road trip, and Rodríguez, Huitema’s boyfriend, was away. She did her nightly routine, locked the doors around 8:30 p.m. and went to bed early in preparation for a Reign game against the Kansas City Current.

She heard a sound downstairs, which got louder and louder. She noted the alarm didn’t go off, but people were running through the Mercer Island house toward the bedroom. She estimated she had less than 30 seconds, just enough time to grab clothes and her phone before the intruders started trying to break down the bedroom door, which she said was deadbolted.

She moved into a bathroom, separated by a sliding door that doesn’t lock. But the water closet did. Huitema locked that door and heard the bedroom door crash open.

Huitema dressed and tried to call police. Roughly 10 seconds later, the call disconnected. She said the intruders brought a “blocker” device that jammed cell service and Wi-Fi. She started texting, asking anyone to call the police, hoping one message would go through.

“I was sitting on the floor with my back against the door and my feet on the toilet, pushing against the door,” she said.

She heard the invaders tearing the bedroom apart, which to some extent drowned out the noise of her attempts to get police to the house.

“But then … there was one person that came into the bathroom with me, and his flashlight was shining, and I could see it going under the door,” Huitema said. “I knew he was right beside me, and I was just hoping that he didn’t touch the door.

“That’s when I put my hand over my mouth and nose, and was just trying to hold in all the tears, trying to hold in all the sounds, just trying to be as quiet as possible. Because that could have been the moment, and that was when it kind of hit me a lot more.”

Sitting on the bathroom floor, she considered how much of a fight to put up if they found her. There was a safe in the house, and Huitema said the intruders brought equipment to remove it. She didn’t know what they would do to her to get into that safe.

The water closet door remained closed. She doesn’t know whether they realized she was home.

“I don’t know if they wanted to find me,” Huitema said. “I’m just happy that they didn’t.”

A few decisions that gave her a handful of additional seconds to react, such as locking up the house and going to bed earlier than usual, made Huitema feel that “somebody was looking over me, in a way.” But the rest was her instincts.

“I am proud of what I accomplished and how I was able to do it in such a quick time,” Huitema said. “You think that you’re going to have more time, or you’re going to hear a sound, and they’re going to creep their way through the house.”

According to the charges, Riley and his accomplices fled with nearly $200,000 worth of belongings. The bracelets Huitema wore at Wednesday’s Reign practice were the ones she said she was wearing that night, which is why she still has them. She would have offered them up instantly if she’d been found.

“You’re in a position of vulnerability,” she said. “There’s three men, and you are by yourself with no weapons. If you want to fight, you’re not winning. That’s not an option, really. So I don’t think it’s a thought that even crossed my mind.”

The harrowing experience showed her that material possessions are just that. Waking up the next morning is all that matters.

“I don’t know what I would do if I were to lose somebody I love for something so not meaningful. Just to steal a few things,” Rodríguez said last week.

“The biggest takeaway I’ve gotten is just how amazing life is, to a whole ‘nother degree,” Huitema said Wednesday.

Reign head coach Laura Harvey woke up to a text from Huitema, sent in the middle of the night. Harvey immediately made sure her forward was safe.

“Just so happy that she was able to act in the way that she was,” Harvey said. “I’m not sure I would have been able to think as clearly as she did in that moment.”

Harvey left Huitema’s status for the Kansas City game up to her. She wasn’t her usual self, which was apparent to several teammates. Huitema didn’t want her friends among the Reign to “feel the weight of that” before the game, so they found out later.

Huitema stepped out of the locker room and cried. But the soccer field is her “happy place,” and she went through the motions. She said she blacked out during the 1-0 Reign victory. While looking at film, she didn’t even recognize her own movements.

Riley’s arrest “broke the cycle” of home robberies and made her feel safer, to a degree, but the effects of that “violating” night linger. A dog’s bark still conjures memories of police dogs running around the house.

Huitema indicated that the house’s security system was strengthened after the robbery. Harvey said the Reign will use a summer break to offer the team a presentation on all types of security, including home security.

Huitema acknowledged professional athletes’ exposure to home invasions. Their house listings are publicized, while their schedules and movements are listed everywhere from ESPN.com to refrigerator magnets.

But this happens all the time, to everyone. Having lived through what she hopes was the scariest night of her life, she recommends planning ahead.

“(It’s) taking precaution and just being smart,” Huitema said. “Talking to yourself about what you would do, in a realistic way. But not letting it spiral into consuming you. Just knowing how to protect yourself.”

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