Kelsey Meca

Balancing school work while playing three sports should be difficult.

However, Mayfield High School’s Kelsey Meca made it look very easy, and that’s part of why she is one of 10 high school honorees for the third-annual Capital District Sports Women of the Year awards.

In the classroom, Meca had a 99.6 average, and she was ranked third in her class. On the playing surfaces, Meca excelled playing soccer, basketball and softball.
Meca credited her parents with telling her the importance of doing well in the classroom.

“Honestly, ever since I was young, my parents instilled in me that school comes first.” Meca said. “Do good in school, and then sports. Sports comes next, and then working. I’ve always had this schedule, a routine that I’ve been able to manage my time really well.”
Being able to balance her time between school and sports came naturally to Meca.

“My practices were usually earlier in the day,” Meca said, “so then when those were over, I would come home, I would study if I had to or I would do any homework that I had, and then I would go to bed.”
Meca has been a standout in the three sports she played at Mayfield. In soccer, Meca was a first-team Western Athletic Conference all-star and the team captain. She was a first-team WAC all-star and the team captain for the basketball team. She was also the team’s most valuable player, the WAC Top Scholar-Athlete and a 10th-team all-state. She holds several team records and was an Exceptional Senior representative.

For softball, Meca was a second-team WAC all-star and the team captain.

The sport Meca said she loves the most is basketball.
“I have had the same coach since I was in fourth grade,” Meca said. “And I have played with the same girls since around that same age. So we just really have this awesome bond together, and we play so well together out on the court and it was just the most fun I’ve ever had in a sports season.”

She greatly enjoyed playing soccer and softball, too.
“For soccer, I really like how intense it is,” Meca said. “It’s a lot of running. You have to be super in shape in order to play the entire game. And it’s a physical game, so I like that aspect of it as well. You really have to work as a team. And as a captain, you have to have leadership as well. You have to be good with talking, communicating with your teammates in a positive and respectful way. So it’s really given me an outlet to stay in shape, and create new relationships.

“And, as for softball, I don’t want to say it’s an individual game because you’re still working as a team, but it’s not as much teamwork-like related in the fact that you can’t, like in basketball, pass it to somebody, they shoot, they score. But, for softball, you’re responsible for your own batting and making plays in the field.”

Meca will attend SUNY Poly in the fall, and she will play for the women’s basketball team. She wants to become a nurse practitioner. The reason Meca wants to become a nurse practitioner is because of her sister.
“When I was about 12 years old, my sister was diagnosed with narcolepsy and cataplexy, and my family went through a ton of obstacles and struggles because no doctors around here really had an idea of what that actually was,” Meca said. “We had to fly her out all the way to California just to get her diagnosed. And that inspired me as a young girl, because I saw what my family was going through. I said to myself, ‘I don’t want any other children to have to go through this.’ So my goal as a nurse practitioner is to not let that happen.”

Mayfield athletic director Jon Caraco said: “Kelsey is eager to volunteer for any and all community service projects done through the school. I have seen her volunteering to clean up local historical sites. . . . She leads activities to raise money for the Stanford Sleep Center and the Children’s Miracle Network.

“If there is something Kelsey cannot do well, we have not found it yet.”