SPRING LAKE – You watch Meah Bajt on a soccer field and automatically think, “That’s a college star on the horizon.”
That was particularly true last week, when the Spring Lake senior exploded for 11 goals in two games over three short days – six against Reeths-Puffer in the Division 2 district semifinals on Tuesday, and another five against Whitehall in the championship game on Thursday.
Who scores at that kind of pace? You just assume that some colleges must be drooling over her potential.
But shockingly, Bajt says she’s not going to play college soccer. She’s had inquiries from some schools, to be sure, but has made it clear that she wants to go to college to focus on academics, and if she plays soccer at all, it will be more of a hobby as a member of a club team.
That means the Lakers’ final game this season – whenever that is – will not only be the end of Bajt’s high school career, but her formal soccer career in general.
[1]That’s hard to imagine for a girl who set a new single-season school scoring record of 38 goals on Tuesday, then added five more to that record on Thursday.
“No I’m not,” Bajt said about playing college soccer. “I’m actually going to Michigan State University. I never really thought, over the past few years, that I would play in college. When I get there I might choose to play club soccer, after I get settled in. I’ll just have to see how I feel.”
Bajt admits that some people have tried to convince her to reconsider, but she assures them that she’s comfortable with her plan.
“My dad asks me all the time, ‘Are you sure?’” said Bajt, who has been an outstanding high school student with a 4.0 grade point average. “Coach May talked to my parents and said she could get me into some camps at MSU. But right now I’m at the point where, if I miss it that much, I will do what I can to get on a club team.”
Spring Lake Coach Becky May said if Bajt had decided to play college soccer, she would have had to attend a smaller school, because Division 1 schools like MSU recruit almost exclusively from elite club soccer programs.
“Michigan State is her family’s school, she always wanted to go there, and it’s a hard choice between playing soccer at a smaller school or having the big college experience,” May said. “But Spring Lake kids are wicked smart, and academics are a big part of their lives. Some of them, like Meah, choose to focus on that instead of sports.”
May. who played at MSU, said she told Bajt that college soccer is a full-time job, and if she wanted to enjoy the college experience like a normal student, playing sports is not the way to go.
“I told her that I went to one football game in four years at MSU,” the coach said. “I told her that if she wants to have a social life and experience college, she can’t play sports, because if you do you can’t do anything else.”
Before Bajt has to think about college, however, there’s still a state tournament to complete, and she’s off to a red-hot start.
Bajt said she never pictured herself scoring 11 goals in two games, and admitted she had some extra motivation in each game last week.
[2]She said May told her the day before the Reeths-Puffer game that she was five goals away from the single-season school scoring record. That made her want to break it, and she said her teammates wanted to help her.
“Some of those last goals I probably wouldn’t have tried for, but my teammates were like, ‘Come on, you got to do it!’” Bajt said.
She also said she didn’t like the way she played against R-P earlier in the season, when the Lakers won 3-1.
“This time I decided I was going out strong and not holding back at all,” Bajt said. “We were revved up to prove we were the better team.”
Against Whitehall, Bajt simply said that a district championship was on the line, and she was going to score as much as possible.
“When I have the ball in front of the goal, I can’t help but turn around and shoot it,” she said. “It was the district championship game, and that’s kind of what I tried to do.”
[3]Bajt’s scoring explosion last week allowed Spring Lake to continue its quest for another shot at a state championship. Last year the Lakers, who were young and started the season 1-1-1, got hot in the state tournament and advanced all the way to the Division 2 state finals before losing.
This year they appear headed in the same direction, with another district title secured, and their next challenge coming on Tuesday in the first round of regionals against Cadillac at Cedar Springs High School. The winner will advance to the regional finals (which is also the state quarterfinal round) on Thursday.
This year’s team has a lot of the same players as last year’s squad, but there’s a lot more confidence than last season, according to Bajt.
That clearly showed in the district finals against Whitehall, when the Lakers appeared calm and assured of the outcome.
“Me and my senior teammates were more nervous than ever (before that game) because we know that one loss can end our careers,” Bajt said. “But we also knew we would win that game if we played up to our capabilities. When we scored the first goal, the pressure was relieved, and we went into our groove and played the way we can play.
[4]“I feel like we just have a ton more experience, because we went through it last year. But there’s also more pressure. Last year we were not really expected to go anywhere. Now we’re just trying to take it one game at a time.”
Bajt and her senior teammates are technically no longer Spring Lake students, since they graduated several weeks ago. But she says they feel like they have unfinished business, and won’t really become alumni until it’s addressed.
That doesn’t mean the Lakers are assuming they will win a state title. Bajt said she realizes there are a lot of great teams still left in the tournament, and nothing is guaranteed.
On the other hand, she’s in no hurry to play her last game and officially end her time as a Laker
“I was talking to my teammates about how we still have that connection to Spring Lake soccer, and it’s not over yet,” she said. “I don’t want it to be over, either.”