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 17, 2022.
There are a lot of ingredients that make up the chemistry of a successful team. Most coaches would place strong leadership at, or near, the top of the list. When it comes to the Central Bucks South lacrosse squad, head coach Janique Craig has enjoyed that strong leadership from senior attacker Kate Victor. “One hundred percent,” Craig affirmed. “Kate has been a varsity starter since she has been a freshman and has been a leader on our team. Kate has really stepped up this year to lead our attack, as we had four players injured this year, which was tough on our team. Kate has so much passion for the game of lacrosse and for her team, which is a rare quality. She is a vocal leader and helps direct her teammates on the field. She is very good at seeing the open players and assisting on goals as well. Off the field, Kate gets everyone motivated and fired up to play. Her passion and energy drove the team to be successful.” The leadership runs from being in charge of the team playlist to more serious matters for Victor, who is bound for the University of South Carolina, where she will major in business.
After making varsity as a freshman, and starting almost every game, Victor was looking forward to continuing to make an imprint as a sophomore. Then, as the spring season was about to take hold, COVID struck and wiped out the campaign. “That was tough,” she said. “When we first got shut down, our athletic director came out to our lacrosse practice and told us to go home. At first, we were just off for two weeks, but then we realized it wasn’t going to happen. It was pretty upsetting to learn that we lost a whole season and that we weren’t coming back to school at all.” Any hope for relief in the summer was lost as well. “It was frustrating because I felt like I had made a lot of progress as a freshman, playing-wise, and had gotten a lot better,” she said. “I was excited to get back on the field and make a difference on the team at South more than I had done my freshman year. In my freshman year, I had taken more of a reserved role on the team. That was tough.” Victor said that working alone at home on her lacrosse skills became her “only outlet,” so she doesn’t feel like her skills eroded much during the prolonged layoff.
What Victor is most proud of is how her team has persevered after the current group of seniors lost their sophomore season due to COVID. “Junior year, we definitely had some struggles, but I do feel like the COVID year that we missed - you can see the progress this year,” she said. “We are all such a tight-knit group of seniors, and I think a lot of that is because of what we all lost together. We hadn’t made playoffs at all, and that was a big goal for us, coming into the season. This was our year to come back and to bring CB South lacrosse back to where it was.”
There is more to Victor than a fierce competitor and leader on the lacrosse field. She carries it over to the classroom, where she boasts a weighted GPA in the 4.3 range, putting her on track for Magna Cum Laude status, as she takes a whopping five AP classes. Victor also served on National Honor Society as an upperclassman and, among her litany of academic honors was a prestigious West Point award as a freshman. “That award is basically for a student-athlete who shines and off the field,” said Victor, whose other volunteer activities include Athletes Helping Athletes and refereeing youth field hockey for the Warrington-Warwick Youth Association and lining the field for Warrington soccer. This all begs the question of how she manages her time. Her answer is a simple one. “Honestly, I don’t really know, but it seems like the busier I am, the most efficient I work,” she said. “If I have less down time, I get more work done and stay on track. I have never really had an issue balancing academics and athletics because I enjoy both of them. I value both of them. I like to learn, and it’s an important thing in my life. I make sure I make time for it.”
To read Victor’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/kate-victor-00101017
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of May 17, 2022.
It would have been easy to understand if Ethan Cohen gave up baseball for good at any point during his high school career. Not only did the pandemic wipe out his sophomore baseball season, but Cohen also suffered two traumatic knee injuries that required surgery while playing seemingly harmless games of pick-up basketball. Cohen didn’t play baseball at all for North Penn as a freshman or sophomore, and only squeezed in about half of a junior campaign before his second freak knee dislocation sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. The emotional and physical rollercoaster could have left Cohen jaded, his psyche destroyed while constantly throwing up his hands and screaming Why me?
However, he made it all the way back to play a full senior season and is using his bad injury luck to launch a hopeful career beginning at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall and ending sometime in the future as an orthopedic surgeon. Cohen wants to help put knees back together, the same way orthopedists did for him on more than one occasion. But before he leaves North Penn, it’s important to look back at Cohen’s odyssey, because it says a lot about his perseverance and internal fortitude that he ever stepped on a baseball field again at all. “Ethan had an ominous start to his high school career,” North Penn head coach Kevin Manero said. “We expected a big impact from him going into his sophomore year. We liked the way the ball came off his bat, and his mechanics reminded us of some of the better hitters we’ve had here in the past. We just never got a chance to put him out there as a young player in the program. Then last year, he was our starting designated hitter and hit the ball very well to open the 2021 season. About halfway through, he dislocated his other knee and missed the rest of that season. We always liked him as a player, but it wasn’t until this year where he had a chance to play. He’s spent a lot of time off the field.”
Even despite the horrible luck, Cohen never once considered retiring for good. The rehab was even more arduous this time around, but at least at this time Cohen knew what to expect. His surgery occurred on July 1, two weeks after the season ended, and based on what he knew from the previous injury, Cohen saw the timeline line up. If all went according to plan, he should be able to make it back for one more go-round as a senior. He wasn’t planning on playing collegiately, so Cohen understood that this would be his last shot at it.
On a trip to Florida over spring break this past March, Cohen did indeed return to action for North Penn. Not only was he back in the lineup, but he smacked three hits and knocked in four runs in his first game back. Manero, watching from the third base coaching box each time Cohen stepped to the plate, was himself filled with immense pride. “It was absolutely fantastic,” the coach said. “He had so many reasons he could have stopped: the first injury, COVID, the second knee surgery — he could have just decided that all of this was not worth it. Ethan had to start all over again and build himself back up, and he likely had so many opportunities or outlets to choose a different path. But he didn’t. The moment he got hurt, all he wanted was to get back on the field. To get three hits in his first game back, that was inspiring.”
It certainly hasn’t been the high school baseball career Cohen envisioned. After two knee dislocations and three surgeries, he spent more time in hospital rooms and doctors’ offices than he did on the baseball field. And that’s okay, because he made it back and was fully healthy for his senior year, which seemed like an impossible dream last summer. “Putting athletics to the side, this experience really just put everything in perspective for me,” Cohen said. “You really can push through anything when you put your mind to it. I had a hard career with a lot of challenges, but I always knew in the back of my mind that I could do this. People have been through way worse than me, but to me it was still the worst thing that could have happened at the time. All of it just propelled me forward. I knew in my heart that I was not done with baseball. From my point of view, I hadn’t given the game enough, and after all that’s happened, I think I love it now more than I ever have. There’s nothing more enjoyable in life than winning a baseball game. That feeling, there will never be another one like it.”
To read Cohen’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/ethan-cohen-00101021
- Log in to post comments
