Coupeville Sports

Morgan Zylstra

The early days of a soccer ace.

The Whidbey Islanders GU18 select soccer squad, which brings together players from all three Island high schools, returns to action in December. This is one in a series of articles on the girls who proudly wear the jersey.

Morgan Zylstra is never far from her camera.

A committed shutterbug (“I like to take pictures of everything and anything”), the Oak Harbor High School junior is taking photography classes through Skagit Valley College as a Running Start student.

While she’s a strong student across the board, artistic endeavors such as photography draw Zylstra’s interest far more readily than basic classes do.

“I will most likely have my camera on me at all times,” Zylstra said. “I guess I could say my favorite subject would be career and tech electives. I don’t struggle with the other subjects, it’s just that they’re not my favorite.”

On the soccer field, she uses her height to her advantage, but is intent on increasing her skill set.

“My strengths would be not only my height, but my strong shot,” Zylstra said. “I’m not the fastest, but when I want to be fast I can be pretty fast.

Zylstra first found the beautiful game as a young girl (“I started a little late, at the age of six or seven. I can’t remember, it was so long ago”) and has played consistently over the past decade.

She bounced from rec soccer to academy play, before winding up splitting duty between the Wildcats during the high school season and the Islanders the rest of the time.

“Now that I have found my home with the Islanders, I couldn’t be happier,” Zylstra said. “What I love about soccer is that when you’re on the right team, you not only play the sport, but also receive a second family.”

That feeling carries over off the field, as well, where she spends a fair amount of time with her teammates.

While she has a large support group (“I would have to say that my parents, my team, and my church family are a big part of who I am today”) it’s the Islanders she dances with as they use the music of 2 Chainz and others to get in the mood for kickin’ butt on the soccer pitch.

“I enjoy my soccer team and we like to hang out together off the field as well as on the field,” Zylstra said. “I think that is very important for a team to do well in their games. Before games we always blast songs to get pumped.”