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 May 20, 2019
Brittany Hubler knows only one way to play softball – all out. The Hatboro-Horsham senior – the owner of a cannon for an arm and an equally powerful bat – could easily be described as intimidating with her no-nonsense style. Make no mistake about it, the senior captain, according to her coach, is the complete package “I knew her when she was in eighth grade, and I knew she was going to be a game changer when she came up,” coach Joe DiFilippo said. The Hatters’ coach was right. A first team all-league selection at catcher, Hubler has set the tone since she stepped onto the diamond.“When you go into a game where you know nobody is going to run on you, that takes a ton of pressure off of everything,” DiFilippo said. “I know when somebody’s on first base that nobody’s running, and she’s great with the pitchers.”
This year’s Hatter squad included a lot of young players on its roster, and at the beginning of the season, it was rough going. At least by the Hatters’ high standards and Hubler’s as well. “I actually had to tell her to tone it down,” DiFilippo said. “She was really scaring some of the freshmen because she’s just such a tough kid, and she wants to succeed. I told her, ‘You know what, Britt – tone it down a little bit and enjoy your senior year. You’re worried too much about what other players are doing. 'I said – enjoy yourself, and you know what – that’s what she started doing, and it was a huge change in our team’s personality. ”It’s not a coincidence the Hatters turned things around after that and went on to capture sole possession of the SOL American Conference title.
Hubler’s steely determination and drive to succeed might be misinterpreted by some but definitely not by freshman Kendal Leitner, who took over the team’s pitching duties midway through the season. “She was so welcoming,” Leitner said. “It was really nice knowing I had a senior catcher behind the plate because she’s been there and done that, so she knew what was going on, she controlled the game. She would calm me down if my pitches started getting a little wild. She’d come out to the mound and say, ‘You’re doing fine.’ She would help me through the inning - she just knew how to get me out of the inning. To opponents, she must be intimidating because she’s so confident and she has such a great personality where you look at her and think, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s going to hit a home run.’ She just has that look to her. Every time someone tries to steal – she’ll get them out. I always knew that nothing would go wrong with our catching because she’s always so much in control.”
Kutztown University will be inheriting Hubler’s talents. The senior captain, who will major in Elementary Special Education, is very clear on her career path. “I will forever enjoy working with kids,” she said. “I did an internship for school, and I worked with students who had special needs. Working with them is just such a great experience, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I want to do this the rest of my life.’” Hubler also volunteers with Soroptimist, an organization that works with at-risk teenagers.
DiFilippo can vouch firsthand that Hubler is a natural working with young people. “Every year we do the young kids clinic the first five week of the new year,” he said. “I actually can send Britt down to a separate gym, and she works with the kids by herself. I don’t even have to check on her. She does volunteer work at Hatboro Little League. She helps Ralph Carrullo with his pitching lessons. She has no problem giving back at any time. Kutztown is getting a great kid to have on their team.”
To read Hubler’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/brittany-hubler-0085227
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of May 20, 2019
If glue is the adhesive that binds things together, then Luke Fehrman was the stickiness that held together and in turn propped up the Central Bucks West community for the last four years. But when taking into account the overall breadth of Fehrman’s accomplishments, glue almost understates his presence. If anything, Fehrman was the super glue with the impression he left on the Doylestown high school not coming unstuck anytime soon, even after he graduates in a few short weeks. In short, Fehrman was everything for Central Bucks West. He was a two-sport, all-league and all-state athlete in soccer and track and field (he also ran cross country concurrently during soccer season, and participated in winter indoor track, too). He also was an accomplished honors student whose exploits in the classroom will lead him to study Prosthetics and Orthotics at the University of Hartford where he will continue his track career. He was a volunteer, a leader inside and outside of the community and an inspiration to both his peers and teachers/coaches alike.
Fehrman’s track coach, Greg Wetzel, called him the glue of West’s nationally-recognized 4x800 relay team. “Since his freshman year, he was never the fastest guy on the relay, but he has been the glue,” Wetzel explained. “Last spring as a junior on a team with many other state medalists and school record holders, Luke was not ranked higher than the third-fastest guy in any one event. Yet he was still our King of the Points for the season because he was always willing to answer the bell. That speaks volumes about his coachability, unselfishness, and mostly, his tenacity. He has been an absolute pleasure.”
In one of the best leagues in the country for the 4x800, Fehrman helped win four consecutive conference titles in the event that ranked in the top-10 nationally. He helped West to another district title in the 4x800 and went on to earn his third consecutive state championship in the outdoor 4x8. He was part of a prolific 4x400 relay that posted four of the top five times in program history and finished third in the state championship final. Fehrman has represented the team four straight years at the Penn Relays. Simply put, the kid can do it all, and it’s not too shabby for someone who didn’t start running competitively until sixth grade and was unsure if he would run track or stick to his first spring sports love of baseball. Fehrman started playing soccer much earlier, around first or second grade, and his early beginnings in both sports put him on a path to become one of the more decorated athletes at a school with a history full of them.
“Luke’s natural abilities in track translated perfectly to soccer,” West soccer coach Stefan Szygiel said. “We don’t accomplish anything without guys like Luke exemplifying leadership and buying in. He was a part of, a piece of the machine, and nobody better exemplified that than Luke. He’s just an extremely likable, respectful, coachable, versatile, well-rounded individual.”
Fehrman has excelled in multiple advanced placement courses and is a member of the National Honor Society (NHS). Because of his inclusion in NHS, Fehrman has many opportunities to volunteer in his community, and he cited Habitat for Humanity, the Best Buddies program for children with special needs and has also lent a hand at an after school program at a local elementary school. Fehrman also has a part-time job working at a local CrossFit gym two nights a week, and it’s fair to wonder how he has the time to not only perform all of his activities, but perform them with absolute excellence. It sure won’t be easy to replace a Luke Fehrman at Central Bucks West. Just ask his coaches. “We will be asking ourselves upon graduation,” Wetzel said. “Who will be the next Luke Fehrman?” It’s not an easy question to answer. As Szygiel added, “We might be able to recreate him in the aggregate because of the example he set to the younger kids, but recreating him as an individual? A special kid like Luke comes around maybe once every 10 years.”
To read Fehrman’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/luke-fehrman-0085226
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