As the eighth-seeded women’s soccer team begins ACC Tournament play this afternoon at SAS Soccer Park in Cary, nine seniors will take the field in what could be their final game.
Of these, none has been around longer than redshirt senior defender Michelle Massey, and perhaps none has gone through more in her time here.
Injury forced her to miss a year. Then graduation, marriage and her final year of playing soccer — in that order — have left her life changed forever. And the game she loves has allowed her to showcase her skill for the school she always wanted to play for.
Even she said what has happened in between the days of playing in the backyard as just a little red-headed girl up until her final days as a college player is still a little hard to believe.
“It’s been awesome, I’ve always wanted to play soccer for N.C. State,” Massey said. “And I never thought it would be as awesome as it was.”
Before Massey was to start her freshman season for State, she blew out her knee during her senior year in high school, missed the entire year and was redshirted.
Since then, she has never missed a game, and it is her consistent play during that time that has earned her three team MVP awards.
“It was a little hard to come in and sit out and watch everyone else come in and play Division I soccer,” Massey said. “It taught me a lot about leadership because I got to sit back and watch the seniors lead.”
The experience has made Massey a stabilizing force on the field and off the field, as her teammates often come to her for advice about soccer and life.
“I would say she’s the one who holds our team together,” senior defender Megan Buescher said. “Especially the freshmen, they look up to her because they know how successful she’s been in school and on the field.”
In soccer, defenders don’t get recognized very often. It is hard to come up with a statistic to show how effective a player is, unlike offense, where one can compare goals and assists, or a goalkeeper who can hang her hat on save percentage.
But Massey almost earned all-conference honors last season, and coach Laura Kerrigan said Duke’s coach said he thought Massey should have been on the All-ACC team.
“She plays so hard and so tough,” Kerrigan said. “She’s been a rock in the back for us. Usually when we keep the team to a low score she’s a big part of that.”
Kerrigan has benefited from a half-decade with Massey on the team, and she ranked her among the best players she has had in her time coaching.
“She’s definitely in the group of the best players that I’ve coached here at State,” Kerrigan said. “She certainly has had another stellar season for us. She turns everything away in the back.”
In 2005, between her junior and senior campaigns at State, Michelle Crocker became Michelle Massey as she married John Massey on June 25.
“It’s been great,” Massey said of her married life. “I’m enjoying it, and it hasn’t really had an impact on my soccer as a lot of people would think.”
Her time playing for the Wolfpack is nearly done, but the married life and her plans to enroll in nursing school at season’s end should still keep her busy.
Being married, graduated and still suffering from knee problems, Massey could have decided to not come back for her final year of eligibility.
But Massey said to play another year for her beloved school was too much to pass up, and her leadership she has developed over time prevented her from leaving a job she said would be unfinished.
“A lot of my injuries have taught me perseverance I wanted to come back and finish something that I started,” Massey said.
“I chose to come back and play because I wanted to do it for the girls I played with, and I wanted to prove I could finish what I started. I didn’t [want to] end all of sudden something I wanted to do my whole life because once it’s done, it’s done.”