SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete for week of April 26, 2021
Neshaminy’s Kacie Sienko is one of the area’s premier long jumpers, and the soft-spoken senior has lofty goals for the postseason in districts and states. She is also coming on strong as a first-year competitor in the triple jump. That’s her literal skill wheelhouse. Figuratively speaking, it could easily be said that Sienko is a hurdler, as she has overcome many hurdles to get to where she is now as an incoming student-athlete at Kutztown University. Sienko attended Archbishop Wood in Warminster as a freshman, making the varsity basketball team but encountering the injury bug. “I had a back injury my freshman year,” she said. “It was tough to deal with. I was out all summer. I couldn’t train or anything. That was really hard for me. (Wood) didn’t have a track that we could practice on, and Neshaminy did. Plus, Neshaminy is closer - I live three minutes away from the high school.”
In spite of the intrinsic benefits, transferring to a larger public school as a sophomore could have been daunting for a naturally quiet person. While she soon found her way socially, her team’s successful basketball season ran long, and Sienko – a sophomore - was slow to bounce back from an ankle injury and was unable to eclipse her previous personal best of 16-9 in the long jump all that spring. “That was really frustrating,” said Sienko, who transitioned from AAU hoops to track during her middle school years. “In eighth grade, my PR was 16-9. In 10th grade, I couldn’t match it.” When Sienko was back where she hoped to be for her junior track season, the scourge of COVID-19 reared its head and forced the cancelling of the whole campaign. “Looking at my season now - if I had last season, too, I wonder where I could be now,” Sienko said. “That makes me really upset to think about because I just love track so much. Not being able to do anything was hard for me.”
As a senior, she was not overjoyed with being a hybrid student – Neshaminy only recently went back to five days in-person school, but she emerged as a leader on the basketball team this winter where she was the only returning senior. “This year was a different role as the only senior on the team, which we know is not very easy,” said coach Joe Lally. “It was a tough year between COVID and everything else, and she did her best to be the leader we needed for the team. She’s fought through so many injuries. She came to us after her freshman year, and we were really excited to get her. We knew she was fast, she was athletic, she could jump. We thought she would add so many things to our team, which she did when she was healthy. She always found a way to get herself back on the floor to help the team. She’s a good kid. She works hard and goes about her business. We were glad to have her. She was a big asset to us.”
And now, come spring, Sienko has not missed a beat this track season. With a new personal best in the long jump at 17-8 ¼, call it making up for lost time. Call it another hurdle cleared. “If I were to jump that at districts,” said Sienko. “I would qualify for states. Last time I checked, I was ranked seventh in the state. That was when my PR was 17-5. Since I PR-ed again, I think I would move up. So, I’m at the state level for the long jump.” Quite an accomplishment for a student-athlete who’s had to overcome one setback after another.
“She definitely has had a lot of hurdles; a lot of setbacks, between injuries and COVID, but she has done a great job,” Neshaminy jumping coach Mike Dillon said. “She is improving all the time, and we’re hoping for a strong finish to the season. I’m hoping, without putting undue pressure on her, that this is a stepping stone to states.” Neshaminy track coach Syd White has had a front-row seat for her lesson in perseverance and is enjoying the way it is now falling into place. Kacie is an incredibly hardworking athlete and team leader,” he said. “Like all athletes today, she has had to overcome to difficulties of missed opportunities and COVID 19 restrictions. Over the past three years, Kacie has also had to overcome injuries that have limited her ability to perform to the extent that she wanted. Despite these difficulties, Kacie has become one of the better jumpers in Pennsylvania, and she is looking forward to proving that over the last few weeks of this season.”
To read Sienko’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/kacie-sienko-0094332
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of April 26, 2021
DJ Fisher remembers it like it was yesterday. Walking into Heartbreak Ridge at Neshaminy High School as a wide-eyed sophomore for North Penn’s season opener in the annual battle between the perennial SOL and district football powers. “My parents asked me if I was nervous for the game, and I was like, ‘No, I’m not nervous, I’m not going to be going in,’” Fisher said. “So we’re coming out for introductions, and I’m just soaking it in - ‘Oh, this is so cool.’ I felt like a little kid in a candy shop. I was looking around, trying to see if I could find my family in the stands. I dreamed of playing for North Penn, and I would always go to the games.” The idea that he’d be watching the game from the sidelines went out the window in a hurry when the game began. “The first play of the game the starter in front of me gets hurt – it was his senior year first play on the kickoff he gets hurt,” Fisher said. “I was like, ‘They’ll probably put someone in before me, I’m just a sophomore.’ It’s hard to play as a sophomore for North Penn. When he said, ‘Fisher, go in,’ that might have been one of the scariest moments of my life because the game from middle school is so much different. It’s so much faster. The only ones more scared than me were my mom and dad because they knew I was scared, and they were even more scared. I remember going to halftime, and my dad said, ‘Yo, DJ, how do you feel out there?’ I didn’t even answer because I knew I was getting whooped. Later in the game, (the score) started to get closer and closer, and I was like, ‘It’s now or never, you’ve got to make a play.’”
To say Fisher made a play would be an understatement. It was Fisher making the tackle to stop Oleh Manzyk – who is now excelling at the University of New Hampshire - on a Neshaminy two-point conversion attempt for the win in overtime. The stop preserved the Knights 34-33 OT win. “He has great instincts,” coach Dick Beck said. “He’s got a nose for the ball, understands the game, very tough and strong and built like a fireplug. He has a great feel for the game, no doubt.” In a perfect world, the story of Fisher’s high school football career would have continued with one highlight reel play after another, but that wasn’t the case for the North Penn linebacker, who faced some daunting challenges along the way. As a ninth grader playing for his Pennbrook Middle School squad, Fisher suffered a concussion and missed the final game of the season. Unfortunately, this was not a once and done thing for Fisher, who was diagnosed with his second concussion the last regular season game of his sophomore year against William Tennent. One year later, after the Knights win over Pennsbury in the third game of the season, Fisher – now a junior - was diagnosed with another concussion. He opted to sit out the rest of the season.
Fisher’s story didn’t end there. The talented linebacker opted to come back for his senior season. Every precaution was taken to ensure Fisher’s personal safety. “I loved playing this season,” said Fisher, who wore a special protective helmet. “COVID messed us up. I really wish we’d have a 10-game schedule, but I loved it. It was different with COVID, but I enjoyed every second of it with my teammates and my coaches. I really had a good time.” A second team All-SOL National Conference linebacker, Fisher was a leader on and off the field. “He led our team in tackles,” Beck said. “He’s a kid that everybody looks to follow when it comes to lead by example. What I mean by that is he’s a super hard worker, never says anything, always has a smile on his face.” Assistant head coach Dave Franek added, “I did not think we would see him his senior year,” Franek said of the senior captain. “It was a pleasant surprise that not only did we get to play with the pandemic and the school board approved us to get back at it but that DJ was with us. He was the lead by example guy. Our captains tend to not be too rah rah which is fine by me. They were more lead by example, quiet assassins, so to speak, not ones to be jumping up and down getting in guys’ faces, and I’ll take that. They did a fantastic job.”
Fisher plans to enroll at Temple University where will attend the Fox School of Business.
To read Fisher’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/dj-fisher-0094325
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