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| Anderson overcomes senior woes, will move on to play at Asbury |
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5/29/2020
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
Mason Anderson is another one of those success stories that is particularly noteworthy during the current pandemic.
Anderson, an excellent student and the president of the Montgomery County High School Class of 2020, seemed to have everything going his way last year heading into the summer.
Mason and his Montgomery County teammates had just finished a 17-4-1 season where they won the regional title and lost 2-1 in the opening round of the state tournament to Ft. Thomas Highlands, which ended up losing to Louisville St. Xavier, 1-0, in the state championship match.
Anderson was an all-regional performer and the team’s offensive leader who would return for his senior season with a large group of teammates to try and make a state title run again.
In the meantime, he was playing club soccer while awaiting a trip to Germany to play against international competition.
He was playing in a match in Ohio when he suffered a knee injury. First thought to be a dislocated knee cap, it turned out to be a torn ligament that would require surgery.
In one instant he saw his Germany trip cancelled, his senior season filled with uncertainty and his collegiate future in doubt.
Then Anderson simply did what great athletes do.
He went to work rehabilitating his knee after the surgery.
He returned to his Montgomery County squad as soon as anyone could have expected and was able to help the Indians to a 13-4-4 record and another district championship.
Then came the pandemic that moved students out of their classrooms into an on-line learning environment at home and curtailed all of the planned senior activities for Anderson and his classmates.
That put Anderson, as the class president, in a position of spending a lot of his time trying to work around social distancing to do the best that could be done for the Class of 2020.
With those chores out of the way, Anderson is now ready to move on. He recently signed to play for Asbury at the collegiate level and to continue his education toward a degree in exercise science and he hopes to ultimately become a soccer coach.
“I’ve had such great support,” Anderson said. “My parents and family, Coach Pannell and the other coaches and my teammates and teachers,” he said.
“I’m going to miss putting on the Montgomery County uniform, I can tell you that,” he said. “It’s been a great experience and I look forward to playing for some outstanding coaches and in an outstanding program at Asbury.”
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