By James Day
One of the most star-studded athletic careers in Silverton High history will be ending soon.
Maggie Roth, who has starred in soccer, basketball and softball all four years with the Foxes, graduates this June. And leaves a stunning legacy.
• She played on 12 teams. All 12 made the state playoffs.
• With her on the squad the girls basketball team won a state in 2016, took second in 2017 and third this season. The Foxes were 93-19 in her four years in the program.
• In soccer she helped lead the Foxes to a memorable second-place finish in the 2016 state tournament.
• In softball the Foxes made it to the state semifinals twice, in 2015 and 2017.
• That’s six final fours out of 12 teams.
• Oh, and she’s also a 4.0 student
“It’s really hard to put everything Maggie has meant to our basketball program, athletic program and community into words,” Silverton girls basketball coach Tal Wold told Our Town. “She is truly unique. She has always been such a tremendous representative of Silverton.”
“She is a rare blend of athleticism and intensity coupled with a love of competition,” said girls soccer coach Gary Cameron. “She just loves to compete.”
“Her personality makes others around her better,” said softball coach Ralph Cortez. “What a privilege it is to coach an athlete like Maggie.”
Roth is going out with a bang. She has seven home runs for the Foxes’ softball squad that will begin state competition Friday, May 18. She sat down for an interview with Our Town before a
recent practice.
“It’s hard to describe,” she said when asked to sum up her high school career. “It’s really weird. It makes me emotional. My favorite part is all of the people I’ve met and my relationships with my teammates, coaches and the community members who have cheered me on. Going through everything with my teammates. There are some unbreakable bonds there.
“I just wanted to go in and compete and play and have fun on the team I’m on.”
Roth admitted to having a soft spot for the 2016 soccer team. The Foxes went into the final game of the regular season with a chance to claim the Mid-Willamette Conference title, but a loss to Corvallis dropped them to third place and forced them to go on the road for
the playoffs.
But the 11th-seeded Foxes proved to be road warriors, winning 1-0 at Marist Catholic, then traveling over Santiam Pass twice in four days to take out No. 3 Bend and No. 2 Summit by identical 4-3 scores. A loss on penalty kicks to La Salle Prep in the title game did nothing to darken the warm glow of the achievement.
“That was one of my favorite teams,” Roth said. “We had a lot of really good seniors, but we didn’t really know how good we were going to be.”
Then there were the comeback kids of March 2016 who rallied to beat Corvallis in the semifinals and Springfield in the finals of the state hoops tournament.
“That was another amazing run that we had,” Roth said. “We had the same group of girls. Me and my teammates grew up playing together, some since first grade. It’s really hard to compare sports and each team is different and special.
“Freshman year seems like so long ago. It’s really weird.”
Roth never had an injury worse than a sprained ankle and the only game she missed in four years was a nonleague basketball game in her sophomore year when she was sick. She surmised that perhaps it was the different muscle groups that come into play when playing three sports that might have kept her injury free.
Roth plans to attend Oregon State University and study biohealth sciences, with a goal of becoming a physician’s assistant. She does not plan to play sports in college.
She said that she thought about trying to play sports at a smaller school but decided that she wanted the “big school aspect” that Oregon State offers.
“I really want to focus on academics,” she said.
And as almost anyone in town can tell you, when Maggie Roth focuses on something… good things usually happen.
