As Claire Meyer dashed up the sidelines during Academy of Holy Angels’ state quarterfinal victory, her long braid, topped with bright green and blue bows, whipped side to side.

In south Minneapolis, the same green and blue is tied in tulle around trees and wrapped on road signs with ribbon, reminders of the mass shooting Aug. 27 at Annunciation Catholic Church.

The tragedy, and a desire to honor its victims, lingers especially strong for Meyer, a junior on a Holy Angels girls soccer team trying to reach its fourth consecutive state championship game.

She is an Annunciation alum herself, like many of her classmates at Holy Angels. The three youngest of the five Meyer siblings are still enrolled at the church’s K-8 school. Meyer helped lead Annunciation’s vacation Bible school summer programming, so she knows many of the kids who were at Mass when 19 victims were shot and two killed.

For Meyer, soccer has been many things since the shooting. At first, just a fleeting thought. Then, a distraction. Finally, a way to both seek out and honor her community.

A game day, gone

Meyer woke up on Aug. 27 ready to shake off Monday’s frustrating 2-0 loss to South St. Paul with a tough clash against Blake — now the Stars’ opponent in this week’s Class 2A state semifinals.

“I just wanted to play a game so bad, so I can forget about what happened on Monday and be able to be better and then move on from that,” Meyer said.

She’d driven to school early with her mom, Meggie, for an academic awards ceremony. Shortly after Meggie was picked up by Meyer’s dad, Holy Angels went into a hallway hold. Eighty-four former Annunciation students, including Meyer and her freshman brother, James, were called to the third floor.

“You hear it,” Meyer said, “and then you’re like, ‘I don’t think this is really real.’”

Just over 2 miles away, her parents were driving home as they watched a police car stop in front of Annunciation. Among the first parents on the scene, the Meyerses eventually found their youngest children — Molly, Bridget and Patrick — as kids poured out of the church.

“The bravery in those kids and what they were experiencing, the fear they had just gone through, will always be with me,” Meggie said.

When the Meyer family reunited at their grandparents’ house, the eldest sister was shaken by the silence of her first-, fifth- and seventh-grade siblings.

“Normally they come through [the door], and they’re arguing about not wanting the middle seat in the car, or something like that. But they were just so quiet … trying to understand what no one should have to understand,” Meyer said. “Being able to help them through that, [I wanted to] kind of be a pillar in that way.”

‘They needed to be together’

When her neighborhood was a crime scene, Meyer craved the normalcy of soccer practice.

The Stars’ game against Blake had been called off, along with the rest of Holy Angels’ after-school activities. The team’s first practice after the shooting started with tears, which eventually turned into laughter, teammates trying to cheer one another up with nonsensical jokes.

“I’m not a super emotional or talkative person in general,” Meyer said. “But in that moment, especially at that first practice … [my teammates and I] shared something, just being in the emotions.

“They knew how to make me laugh in such an unexpected time, or to make me roll my eyes.”

Even an experienced coach like Dave Marshak, in his 18th year leading the program, had no playbook for this scenario. The team played relaxed games of soccer tennis. There would be no film for next week’s matchup against Hill-Murray, no talk of strategy or technique.

“You just kind of have to listen to the players and what they are telling you they need, and they needed to be together,” Marshak said.

Players tended to each other, and Meyer got special consideration. Addy Judson, a senior center back, tailed after Meyer, throwing an arm around her shoulder at each water break, recalled Marshak. Senior midfielder Ellen Neuharth had found Meyer and her mother at the packed prayer vigil at Holy Angels the night after the shooting, giving both a long hug.

Teammates provided meals for the Meyer family and later in the fall would volunteer together at Annunciation’s annual SeptemberFest.

Like healing, finding a way back to the field wasn’t linear. The weight of the past 48 hours hitting her, Meyer emailed Marshak and told him she was going to miss Friday’s practice to be with the extended family flocking into town. He told her, “Whatever you need.”

In the wake of the shooting, Meggie had connected with a Sandy Hook victim, who reminded her, “Don’t forget about the older kids, the kids that weren’t there.”

Meggie has always been proud of her daughter’s skills on the soccer field, but on that day she was proud of her for choosing to not lace up her cleats — that Meyer could recognize she needed “to take a break, to pause,” said Meggie, “and then just to keep moving forward.”

A healthy outlet

A 2-1 loss to Hill-Murray on Sept. 2 put into perspective that winning — something two-time state champ Holy Angels did often — had taken a backseat to the importance of simply being together. In fact, the loss marked the moment Marshak knew his team was going to eventually be OK.

“I’ve never seen a team enjoy losing a game the way they did. They were just happy to be on the field again,” Marshak said. “Sports is supposed to be that laboratory to develop resilience and grit and to learn to fall. I think sometimes coaches, players, parents can lose sight of that.”

To Meyer, soccer has become a place to seek not only support but also a sense of control.

Flying up the left wing with the ball at her feet, she knows just what to do. Her 17 assists this fall — including three in her section title game — were the most by any defender in the state. An all-conference selection, she is versatile, too, considering she plays center back for her Minnesota Thunder Academy club team. “You’re looking at a future captain,” Marshak said.

“There’s a lot of things in this world that you can’t control,” Meyer said, “but when you’re out on the soccer field, you can control how much you work and if you’re going to win the next tackle.”

When Meyer tied her bows onto her braid ahead of a state quarterfinal in which she’d score her sixth goal of the year, it was for her siblings, their classmates and the community that raised her. A small symbol of a large weight Meyer and her family carry.

“The front of the church doesn’t have overflowing flowers anymore,” Meyer said. “I think now it’s just … moving forward and honoring what happened, and recognizing the everyday things that we do, how grateful I am to be able to have control of when I step on a field.”

“I have this opportunity, so I’m going to use it to the fullest,” she said. “How can I help this person? How can I honor this person?”