Mountain Ridge's Mason Reed named Offensive Player of the Year

Jan. 22—FROSTBURG — By 2021, Mason Reed was as synonymous with Mountain Ridge boys soccer as Manuel Neuer is with Bayern Munich. Reed capped off his high school career with a record-setting season with the Miners and being named Dr. Raul Felipa Offensive Player of the Year.

The individual awards and All-Area teams were decided at a meeting of area head coaches last year. Selections were then sent to the Cumberland Times-News by each team's respective head coach.

Reed, who has been with the Mountain Ridge boys soccer program since 2013 when he became the team manager/ball boy, averaged 2.94 points per game with 17 goals and 13 assists for 47 points in 16 games last season for the 14-2 Miners.

"He is a student of the game and has worked on improving his craft each year during the offseason," Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. "Joining the track team to increase his speed not only helped him on the pitch but he's also become an exceptional hurdler."

Reed wasn't just a swift-footed weapon for the Miners' offense, but his height and jumping ability made him an extremely useful player on set pieces, an area Nightengale constantly emphasizes.

"Mason's growth spurt to over 6 feet tall landed him as one of our targets on set pieces during the latter half of this season," said Nightengale. "He previously took the majority of our corner kicks and short direct kicks with his ability to place a quality ball. During our long throws, Mason was our main target to flick the ball into the box. Opposing teams often man-marked him or double-teamed him on these pieces."

Reed, a captain, tallied three hat tricks in 2021, which puts him among an elite list of players to record hat tricks as a Miner. His hat tricks against University, Clear Spring and Southern put him on an exclusive list of Mountain Ridge players to score three times against three different teams in a season — David Hobel is the only other player to do so.

In the Miners' third game, a 10-0 win over Northern, Reed set a single-game school record with four assists. His 13 assists in 2021 are also a school record, and his 20 career assists, surpassing Hobel and Jacob Ritchie, are second in school history behind Jacob Bittner. The mark is made even more impressive considering the pandemic more or less wiped out the 2020 season, limiting the Miners to just a few games over the fall and spring in the 2020-21 school year.

Last season, Reed found the stat sheet with a goal or assist in 15 of Mountain Ridge's 16 games. He scored in 13 games and assisted in seven of them.

"Mason is a great kid who just loves the game of soccer," Nightengale said. "He is always positive and maintains a great attitude no matter what challenges face him. He has helped his teams achieve a high level of success for the past three seasons at the varsity level. Mason has such a high level of soccer IQ. He's like another coach on the field."

Reed broke into the lineup as a sophomore during the Miners' 2019 state-title winning campaign, when he scored four goals and tallied three assists.

Much of his impact that season came during the playoffs. Reed scored the insurance goal in a 3-1 win over Southern to open the playoffs, then delivered a corner kick in double-overtime that assisted Jacob Ritchie's goal to send Mountain Ridge over St. Michaels, 2-1, and into the state semifinals. There, against Crisfield, Reed tallied a goal and an assist in a 3-0 win before the Miners dispatched Francis Scott Key in the title game, 3-0, for the school's third state crown.

"Mason is a smart, savvy player who can use both feet well," Nightengale said. "He is a very unselfish player as evidenced by his record number of assists. Mason can play direct or can hold the ball, which is his specialty of setting up his teammates into a quality scoring opportunity. While his stats and records are impressive, Mason does so many things that don't show up in the stat sheets. The extra work he put in on weekends, organizing team sessions and leading by example are just a few of his traits that helped make him the player he became."

Reed excels in the classroom as well, holding a 4.37 GPA as a member of the National Honor Society and a receiver of a Minds in Motion award all four years in three sports — soccer, track & field and indoor track.

"We will certainly miss the elements Mason brought to this program every day," Nightengale said. "He has set a new standard for future players to strive to achieve. I believe he has the talent to play at the next level. He has definitely shown he is willing to put the work in and is very coachable. It's been my pleasure coaching Mason Reed. I'm certain he will achieve great things. He's just made that way."

Kyle Bennett is a sports reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @KyleBennettCTN.