Thanks to our continued partnership with Univest Financial, SuburbanOneSports.com will once again recognize a male and female featured athlete each week. The recognition is given to seniors of high character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams or who have overcome adversity. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of May 11, 2023)
Greg Green has been coaching track at Lower Moreland High School since 1986. Over the years, he has seen superstars come and go. But those aren’t always the student-athletes he gushes about the most. There are those with victories that go beyond gold medals and personal bests. There are those like Ava Devlin, who overcame her own fears – and Crohn’s disease (CD) – to be an integral part of the cross-country team and a solid contributor as a middle- and long-distance runner for the indoor and outdoor teams. “I get just a big of thrill, if not more of a thrill, watching the Ava Devlins come along and get better,” said Green. “Seeing the reward on their faces as they continue to grow. That’s the best, it really is.”
When Devlin first joined the cross-country team in the fall of her freshman year, it was to be a manager. “Very humble beginnings,” recalled Green. “She was my manager for about three weeks, and she only wanted to be the manager because a couple of girls that she was in middle school with decided to run cross-country and Ava wanted to be part of a team.” But Green formulated a plan. He recalled: “After a couple weeks, I mentioned to her mom, ‘Ava can be the manager, but I’d like to see if we can get her to start running a little bit.’ The mom was a little nervous about it. I said, ‘She won’t run in a meet until she can run 30 minutes without stopping. She might not get into a meet until the end of the season, or maybe not at all, but let’s see if we can get her to start running.’”
Devlin looks back now and recalls the trepidation she felt, and it was understandable. She started feeling ill in first grade and was officially diagnosed in 2013, at the tender age of 8, with Crohn’s. Devlin had played some softball when she was young, but was cut from the middle school team, and that was the extent of her athletic career. “I told him I didn’t want to (run),” she said. “He said, ‘If you are going to be on this team, if you are going to come to practice, you have to run.’ I ran so slow. He said it didn’t matter, as long as I held on without stopping. I lasted for about 3 ½ minutes, once around the high school building, and it felt so hard.” But, then something strange happened on the apparent road to nowhere. She got somewhere, albeit in baby steps, running 10 minutes the next day and then 20 the following day. “I remember when I ran for 20 minutes, I was super excited,” said Devlin. “I was allowed to go to a meet to watch, but I wasn’t allowed to get my own uniform until I ran for 30 minutes without stopping.”
She had achieved that once seemingly unattainable goal by end of that September. Said Green, “It’s a great story. As a child, through grade school and middle school, she really struggled.” Nonetheless, there were times when it all seemed to be a bit too much, all the practicing just to a run at what seemed to be a snail’s pace and shuttling back and forth to CHOP for infusions between practices. “Sometimes, in my freshman year, I really wanted to quit,” she admitted. “It was so hard, but I never quit. I wanted to get better.”
The thing about running is that the stopwatch tells no lies. It told one truth here: Ava Devlin’s hard work had paid dividends. In her freshman year, she went from 37 minutes to the range of 32-33 minutes and then shaved off another 5-6 minutes as a sophomore and won the Most Improved Award. She peaked as a junior, running around 22 minutes, before a hip flexor and tendinitis have kept her running around that time again as a senior. Devlin not only taught herself a lesson, but one she would share with others with any ailments that may make them want to stop pushing on. “I would say that you should always try and not quit when you think you want to quit,” said Devlin. “You don’t know how good you can be. If you can just stick it out for another month or two months, you are going to realize that you really can get better. You just have to keep on pushing yourself. If you quit early, you are never going to know.”
Devlin drew great strength and comfort from learning she was not alone in her struggle. She went to Camp Oasis, an overnight camp in Kintnersville, Pa., where the campers and all the counselors have either Crohn’s or colitis. She went five years in a row, up until COVID, and plans on being a counselor there in 2024. Crohn’s Disease is rare, affecting about one in 200,000 people, and there is no known cure. Devlin, for her part, wants to raise awareness about CD and help erase any stigmas that may be attached with it. “A lot of people don’t know what it really is, but there are one or two kids at my school who have it,” she said. “It’s not officially curable right now, but there are a lot of treatments out there.”
Barnard College in New York City has an unforgiving acceptance rate around 11 percent, but that’s where Devlin – boasting a surreal weighted GPA of 6.1 -- will be next year. With an eye on a law career, she was on the Lower Moreland mock trial team as the plaintiff attorney and defense witness. She also played clarinet in the wind ensemble and both clarinet and saxophone in the and jazz band. For good measure, she was the president of the school’s National Honor Society.
To read Devlin’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/ava-devlin-00106858
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of May 11, 2023)
Ryan Petrie’s efforts and his leadership on the baseball diamond and the links proved how valuable he has been as an athlete and a leader for Council Rock South’s baseball and golf teams. But Petrie’s athletic endeavors are just a small fraction of the legacy he will leave behind. “We try to tell our players - they have an opportunity to have an impact, there are people who look up to them,” said Golden Hawks’ baseball coach Greg Paprocki. “Ryan has seized the opportunity to be a leader—he’s really had an impact here. As a coach, you’re really proud to say that a guy doesn’t just leave your program but leaves it with a legacy. People will always talk about Ryan Petrie, how mature he is, how driven he is. But it’s not just in athletics. Every person that Ryan has worked with, everyone he’s played with, teachers he’s had … Ryan has an impact on and leaves a good impression with everyone he comes across. His reputation will forever be a positive one. When he leaves, Council Rock South will have become a better place than it was before he got here. That’s the kind of kid he is and the kind of impact he’s had on his teammates, his school, and the community.”
Between playing two sports, maintaining stellar grades, and being a part of a laundry list of extracurricular activities, Petrie admittedly doesn’t have a lot of downtime. He is a member or officer in numerous clubs at Council Rock South, all of which have one thing in common—they’re all service organizations that exist to help and support others. He has been a part of student government all four years at South, two years as a class officer, and as class president of his junior and now his senior class. Petrie has been an officer for two years—including Vice President this year—in the Young Investors Society. He is a member of Council Rock South’s National Honor Society as well as the Math, English, and Social Studies Honor Societies. He serves as a peer mentor at the high school, helping freshmen transition from middle school to high school as smoothly as possible. Petrie is also the President of the school’s chapter of the Travis Manion Foundation. And during the summers, Petrie can often be found working community summer camps for baseball and golf, trying to instill in youngsters the love of the games that he developed from those who were once in the position he now finds himself.
Coming off a fall season that saw him earn SOL Second Team honors and being named co-MVP of the Hawks’ golf team, Petrie entered the spring as one of the experienced leaders on a South baseball team loaded with freshmen and sophomores. As such, he and his classmates would be counted upon not only to contribute on the field, but to help mold the young team into a cohesive unit. Fortunately, the Hawks had just the right guy in just the right spot. “The underclassmen can see in Ryan a guy who knows his job and does his job,” Paprocki said. “Ryan’s not worried about hitting the home run, he knows his role and knows how to help the team, that’s why he’s such a tremendous player for us. He’s one of our top hitters, one of our top guys on base. He leads by example, does all the right things in practice. He’s really stepped up in that role. He knows who he is and where his strengths are. Ryan is absolutely one of the top guys on our team, someone kids can look up to in the classroom, in the community, and on the field. He’s the type of kid that not only the players but the coaching staff admire.”
After devoting 14 years of his life to the game, Petrie will leave behind varsity athletics when he heads to the University of Maryland in the fall. He may look to play club golf or baseball, but he’s heading to College Park for the academics and the opportunities that the school provides its students. “I’m going to major in cybersecurity, so being so close to the DC area, and having things like the FBI, CIA, NSA so close to me, having that major is huge and being in that area is huge for government-based job opportunities,” Petrie said. “And Maryland is far enough that I’ll be on my own, but I’m still close enough that I can come home and see my parents and my sister.” But even after he hangs up his cleats and heads off to college, Petrie’s spirit will be felt in the athletic fields, hallways, and the community for years to come. “When Ryan graduates, Council Rock South is going to lose a kid who is completely selfless, who is respectful to others, and somebody who has impacted the community in such a selfless way,” Paprocki said. “When you do things the way Ryan Petrie does, you begin to build a reputation with teammates, with teachers, with administration in the school, and with people in the community. The way he is as a student and a hard worker, someone that younger kids would look up to and admire, Ryan has been exactly that guy for us. We have a very young team full of freshmen and sophomores, and he’s going have an impact on those kids. He should be proud. Even when he’s no longer here, I don’t know if we’re completely losing him, because the legacy he’s built will be around for a long, long time.”
To read the remainder of Petrie’ story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/ryan-petrie-00106857
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