Soccer: Malatskey dancing by defenders

Plenty of early-rising work-goers despise Mondays, and Carly Malatskey remembers feeling the same way when she was very young.

Malatskey’s older sisters, Britt and Jenna, both did ballet and danced as kids. Soon, her mom Michele tried to get Carly into the act as well.

“My mom assumed that I would love ballet, but she was very wrong,” Carly Malatskey said. “I did ballet and I cried like it was the worst thing ever. I hated Mondays, the day I had to go to ballet.”

Carly traded her slippers for a soccer ball as a 5-year-old, which turned out to be a monumental decision in her young life. And ever since then, since kindergarten, she has attended Tarbut V’Torah, a small Jewish school in Irvine.

When people asked her where she went to high school, she usually didn’t mention Tarbut by name. She doesn’t expect anyone to recognize the school, which has fewer than 200 students in its “upper” (high) school.

People recognize Carly Malatskey, though. Nobody can deny that.

Malatskey, a lifelong Newport Beach resident, is in the midst of a big soccer year. The striker scored 73 goals in just 19 games as a senior for Tarbut V’Torah, second all-time in the CIF Southern Section annals for a single season. Malatskey helped the Lions (17-2) win their third straight San Joaquin League title and advance to the Division 7 quarterfinals for the first time in program history, before losing to eventual champion Grace Brethren.

Her pitch performance in club soccer has been no less extraordinary. She was the leading scorer and team captain for the Slammers FC Under-18 team that won the Elite Clubs National League national championship on June 28 in Oceanside.

Malatskey, who has trained with the U.S. Under-18 national team, heads to Stanford as one of the top recruits in the country. Yet, the Khoury brothers know that it’s not necessarily raw talent that separates her from the rest.

Ziad Khoury has coached her through the years at Slammers. His twin brother, Walid, has coached her at Tarbut V’Torah.

“She’s done it on the club level, she’s done it on the high school level and she absolutely will do it on the collegiate level at one of the best soccer programs in the United States,” Ziad Khoury said. “It’s just her work rate. She just always gives 100 percent. Carly does not know what a 90 percent is, or even what a 99 percent is, effort-wise. She gives 100 percent from the minute she steps onto the field to the minute she leaves the field, and it’s old school. To me, it’s old school. She’s just one of those players.”

Malatskey started out her club soccer career playing defense, until Ziad made the decision to move her to forward about five years ago. He saw her dribbling ability and the way she wanted to go forward and take players on.

“It was a big decision, so credit to him,” Malatskey said. “It was just very weird [at first]. It’s weird being right in front of the goal, rather than seeing mostly everything going on in front of you. But I loved having the ability to be creative, and much more freedom to dribble past players and all of that stuff.”

At first, Malatskey couldn’t finish as a forward. Boy, did that change once she got into high school. As a freshman she still played defender on a team with star forward Savannah Levin, who now plays at USC. Malatskey then scored 157 combined goals during her final three years at Tarbut. Only Erin Martin of Temple City, who scored 93 goals during the 1991-92 season, has scored more goals in a single season in CIF Southern Section history than Malatskey’s 73 last season.

Martin, incidentally, also went on to play at Stanford. As for Malatskey, she humbly gave some of the credit for her high school season to Tarbut V’Torah sophomore center midfielder Daisy Gollis, who plays club for the Slammers Under-16 team.

“It is crazy,” Malatskey, who stands 5-foot-41/2, admitted of the 73-goal total. “I’m proud, but honestly, I’m just so happy to play on the TVT team. I just go out there and do my best.”

Walid Khoury has seen that humility from Malatskey time and time again. He said coaching players like her is ultimately what makes him enjoy being a coach.

“A lot of players that are going to Stanford and playing on the national team, you know, nowadays you honestly need a postcard to talk to them,” Walid Khoury said. “This kid, you wouldn’t even know it, and that’s what makes her special. I’m happy for all the success she’s had. She deserves every bit of it. She’s earned every bit of it.

“She could have easily said, ‘I don’t want to play for a small school, I want to take this time off and train.’ That shows you the character of the kid. She wanted to play for her high school. She loved her high school. You could see the excitement in her playing for her high school, and it was such an exciting time for Tarbut. The support we got for games, you’re talking about a 184-student school, and sometimes we got over half the school to come watch the games, especially toward CIF. That’s unbelievable.”

Walid said it was Malatskey’s improved decision-making, knowing when to go one-on-one against a defender and when to pass to a teammate, that made a big difference this year.

Ziad also paid her a big compliment, saying Malatskey reminds him of another Slammers player he used to coach. Christen Press went on to become Stanford’s all-time leading scorer and helped the U.S. win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. She’s getting ready for the Summer Olympics in Brazil.

“To me, it’s so fulfilling,” Ziad Khoury said. “Carly’s going to Stanford, and Stanford’s all-time leading scorer is a girl that she watched when she was 11, 12 years old, growing up playing with Slammers.”

Malatskey said it’s a huge compliment to be compared to Press, and she’d love to follow in those footsteps and make the national team. Again, though, she deflects the credit.

“It just shows how amazing ‘Z’ is,” Malatskey said. “Honestly, he’s the best coach I’ve ever had, and him and Walid together are amazing. They’re just such amazing humans. I’m so happy for them, because it rewards them and their hard work. [Former Slammers FC player] Whitney Engin as well is on the national team.”

For now, Malatskey is focused on competing for the Cardinal. She leaves for Stanford on July 31.

“I’m really excited,” she said. “I can’t wait. It’s bittersweet though, because I’ve been with Slammers since 10 years old.”

That’s OK. At Stanford, Malatskey will get to continue wearing a shade of red as she slams the ball into the back of the net, over and over again.