SWAMPSCOTT — Like most people her age, Sarah Ryan had no definite plans for college, other than the fact she wanted to go somewhere.
Things have been tough for the Ryan family, so she sacrificed playing softball this spring for Swampscott High, figuring she’d need the extra time to work for college money. She also figured to bone up on her field hockey skills.
Then, she took part in a Division 3 field hockey showcase in Bedford, mainly because she wanted to see whether any coaches would reach out to her. That’s exactly what happened. She caught the eye of Vassar College coach Michael Warari.
“He saw me play,” Ryan said. “And then the school invited me up there (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) for an overnight.
“I loved it,” Ryan said. “It’s a small school, with small classes, and I do better with small classes.
Not only that, students can take a general studies curriculum their first year there if they’re not sure which way they want to go. And there’s the opportunity to study abroad.
“The players on the team were great,” she said, “and we hit it off right away. There wasn’t anything awkward about it.”
Ryan, a defenseman for the Big Blue, said Warari — whose staff won the North Atlantic Region Coaching Staff of the Year award — liked her on-field leadership while watching the showcase.
“I guess I’m loud when it comes to telling people where to be and what to do,” Ryan said. Even though she did play midfield once in a while, she was not known as a scorer.
“I have one goal in my high school career,” she said.
Once she went to Vassar, the choice was easy, she said. She applied for early acceptance, and she was chosen to be in the freshman class this fall.
And while there are no officially-sanctioned athletic scholarships for Division 3 schools, Ryan is confident the money aspect of it will be worked out.
Like almost all high school seniors with college on their mind, Ryan’s decision to attend Vassar has lifted a load off her shoulders. And truth be told, those shoulders have had to carry an awful lot.
Last year, her father, Mark, was diagnosed with cancer. And it threw everyone in the family — Sarah, her mother, Leah and brother Zack (a freshman at Swampscott High) for a loop. For Ryan, it left her with some serious questions about what she was doing and where she was going.
“You keep thinking that there’s more important stuff than what you’re doing,” she said. “It’s like ‘why do schoolwork? Is it really that important?'”
In her case, yes it was. She leans more to math and statistics than she does to English (“I don’t like writing papers”), and wants to work in some aspect of forensic science.
Her father has responded well to recent treatment, she said. Still, living with the situation taught her a few important things.
“I had to learn how to compartmentalize,” she said. “I had to learn to focus on what I had to do at that moment. It doesn’t always work out that way, but you can try.”
