Cardinals’ Sara Massey on top of soccer

There’s an easy, almost effortless, manner in which Medical Lake High School’s Sara Massey works magic with a soccer ball at the end of her foot.

“Skill wise, she’s probably the top player for the last three years in our league,” said Cardinals Head Coach Zane Higgins.

Looks however, can be deceiving.

While the feet can dance across the pitch without a care in the world, the mind can be working a million miles an hour. For as Massey begins her senior year of soccer at Medical Lake, her father is commanding an Air Force squadron halfway around the world in Qatar.

“Last year he went to school in Alabama, and we tried our best to tape the games we could,” said Massey. “He’s always been there to watch me play and give me pointers.

“For him not to be there, it really, really got to me at first because he would always be there to cheer me on. You learn to deal with it. That’s just how it goes.”

In fact, Massey’s father, Max, has been separated from his family for the past two years.

“Each phase that I’ve gone through, my parents have really helped me get to the programs that I need to get into, and they try their best to show me the best options for me,” said Massey. “They give up a lot of things.

“My dad’s been gone for two years from our family so I can stay here and graduate.”

Like other kids from Fairchild Air Force Base who attend Medical Lake, Massey has had to learn to live without a parent who is serving their country overseas. Despite her father’s absence, the Cardinals’ captain has taken her father’s lessons to improve herself on and off the soccer field.

“At Fairchild he was a commander of over 300 people,” said Massey. “Just being around that, and seeing all the stuff he has to deal with, and how much of a leader he is … it pushes me more to see what a leader my dad is, and that I can follow in doing what I’m doing in soccer, or in school. It definitely helped me a lot.”

It paid off as Massey has led the Cardinals offensively for the past two seasons, earning Most Valuable Player in the Great Northern League, as well as All State honors.

“She’s constantly played soccer; she’s played it all her life,” said Higgins. “She’s worked hard at it. We just benefit from all the hard work she does outside what we do in high school.

“She’s been playing for a while with the Shadow team that just won the national championship. That helps her. Not a lot of players in our league are at that level.”

As a member of the Spokane Shadow club team, Massey helped her team win the national title in early August in Long Island, N.Y., defeating the nation’s second-ranked team, from Chicago, 1-0 in overtime.

“We weren’t expected to win, but as we kept going along and doing better, we felt better about it,” Massey said. “It helped me to know that even though you’re the underdog, which at Medical Lake we usually are, that you can still go further when you least expect it.

“That moment we won it; it was a moment when you’re so happy you want to cry. It was amazing. It was a memory I’ll never forget.”

The experience also helped hone her skills and prepare her for her final season with the Cardinals.

“If I hadn’t played club soccer, I wouldn’t have become a better soccer player,” said Massey.

Winning national titles from the Inland Northwest is a long way from Guam, where Massey took up soccer at the age of 4.

“It was a co-ed team, and it was so fun,” Massey said. “We had the little goals, and it was a really good experience.

“I wasn’t really good at anything else sports wise. Soccer was basically my way to express what I could do,” she said.

“In eighth grade I tried basketball. I made varsity my first year. I only scored four points the whole year, though, so I gave that up real fast,” she said with a laugh.

Thankfully for the Cardinals, soccer has been another story. Not only has Massey established herself as the top player in the Great Northern League the past two seasons, she started out her senior season with three goals in a 6-0 win over St. Maries in the season opener last week.

“She’s very good at all aspects of the game,” said Higgins. “She’s got a great shot from the outside, she works really hard in the midfield, and she’s a really physical player as well.

“She’s got speed and quickness. She’s got everything you need to play soccer.”

Massey though, will always play with the thought of her biggest fan watching from halfway around the globe.

“We didn’t get a chance to tape the games in New York, but since it’s my senior year, I’ll be taping them (the games) for colleges,” said Massey. “I’m sure I’ll get copies to send to him as well … if we can because they’re (the military) really strict about what goes in the mail, but we’ll try.”

“He’ll come back to see me graduate, hopefully,” she continued. “Then he’ll be going somewhere else after that.

“My brother has to graduate here too, so he’s going to make that sacrifice again.

“We don’t know where he’ll go (after Qatar), but hopefully it will be somewhere in the States so he’ll be around more often.”