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 30, 2023)
When Heather Gehlhaus took over as head softball coach at Springfield, she was facing the potentially difficult challenge of being the team’s third coach in as many years. There could have been pushback, especially from the team’s seniors, but that was not the case. And, as the Spartans found themselves in the District One AAAA playoffs for the first time in five years, she knows where the newfound success began. While senior catcher Taylor Schulz hit over .500 - and with big power numbers - out of the cleanup spot, it only told part of the story. Schulz led, and the rest of the team followed. “I wanted to step up,” said Schulz. “(Gehlhaus) came in and took everything really seriously. She treated everyone on an equal level, which has been really nice. With Springfield being small, she realizes we don’t get as many travel players. She has taken a lot of her time to work with everyone, whether it is fielding or hitting. She was an outfielder at Millersville. She has been really great. I wish I had her in the prior years. She is going to be really good for our school in the coming years, too.”
While she is focused on building a program for the long haul, Gehlhaus realizes what Schulz has meant, even it’s only for one year after the reset button was pressed. “Taylor? She’s just a really great kid,” Gehlhaus said. “She stepped up as a leader this year, from the very beginning of when I started. With all my varsity girls, I feel like I got buy-in, and Taylor really helped to lead it as a senior. I remember one of the first practices. She was, like, ‘Hey, girls, go clean up the stuff.’ I was, like, ‘I love it. I have another little assistant coach. This is great.’ She really stepped up as a leader. I would say she is a leader by example more, but she will be vocal, too, at times.”
While Schulz works diligently on softball, she found the time to still be a three-sport athlete. She was the goalie for the water polo team and a key contributor on the swim team. The water polo gig occurred by happenstance. “I had no idea that it was really even a sport or anything,” said Schulz. “Some people who I knew played. One of my good friends said, ‘You should play.’ When COVID hit, they had sessions on learning how to do it at one of the local country clubs nearby. Early on into the preseason workouts, they realized they were going to need a goalie. They asked me to do it, so I pretty much took up that position of goalie.” And the rest, as they say, was history. “It’s a really cool sport,” she said. “I wish I knew about it my freshman year. It’s cool how it works out. The team was always great. We actually won back-to-back state championships for small schools and one of the Beast of the East tournaments. Even though we’re not the biggest school, we had a lot of participation with it.”
Come the winter, Schulz stayed in the pool for the successful Spartans’ girls’ swim team that won SOL and districts the last two years. Schulz’s events are 100 fly and 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay. She declined an option for the Last Chance Meet to make districts, feeling satisfied with hitting PRs each year and moving on to train for softball. “It’s really good for you,” said Schulz. “The team environment is really great. In all of these sports, I have just been able to meet so many great people. The team environments are really good.”
As dedicated of an athlete as she is, Schulz made the decision to not do much more than maybe play club softball while attending Pitt and majoring in business. “I ultimately decided that I didn’t really want to play in college,” she said. “I was more concerned with picking an institution that would better suit my academics. I wanted to prioritize that over sports. That’s definitely why I decided not to play.” While she is not 100 percent sure what she wants to pursue for a career, Schulz foresees getting an MBA and making it work for her in the business world. Schulz, who worked part-time as an office assistant at Ally Services Co., split her time between Springfield and Eastern Center for Arts and Technology (located across from Upper Moreland High School) to enhance her business and technology skills and experience a more work-like environment. She earned OSHA and Word Certification and learned the basics of accounting, presentation skills, etc. Schulz also immersed herself in service-related extracurricular activities, such as National Honor Society, the Sustainability Club and the Interact Club, which works with an organization called. Mitzvah Circle. “(Mitzvah Circle) helps families in surrounding counties, if they need materials and supplies for their families,” she explained. “I always like to do community service. It is a really great feeling being able to help people.” Throw in sports, and it’s a busy lifestyle as a student-athlete with weighted GPA in the 4.3 range and a community volunteer. “I’m so proud of who she is – not only as a softball player, but as a person, too,” Gehlhaus said. “I can’t wait to see what she does in her future. I’m lucky that I got to work with her for a year and see how good of a player she was.”
To read Schulz’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/taylor-schulz-00107174
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of May 20, 2023)
Doing what’s best for the team. It’s a nice idea. At least it sounds like one until it requires sacrifice. Then, quite often it’s another story entirely. Tyler Evangelisto gets it. Plain and simple. The North Penn senior is passionate about baseball, but he’s never really had his moment in the spotlight. As a matter of fact, he’s seen limited varsity playing time. This after getting cut as a sophomore (he had an appendicitis two weeks before tryouts) and playing jayvee as a junior. Last year he gave up his natural position – catcher – since the team had a surplus of catchers to try his hand at pitching. And yes, if given a choice, Evangelisto would love to see more playing time, but he sees the bigger picture. “I’ve always had that kind of mentality of whatever helps the team win,” Evangelisto said. “I’m a pitcher – they call on me when they need me if they need me at all, and if not, I can find other ways to help. If that is keeping the stats and talking game plan because I know it’s always good to hear something strategy-wise not from a coach but from another player – how a pitcher is sequencing his pitches and stuff like that.”
When he was just eight years old, Evangelisto was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. “I got diagnosed the same time as 4-6 other kids when I was in the hospital, so all these other kids were in the exact same boat as me,” he said. “They were teaching us about – this is how you count carbs, this is how you set up your insulin, and I was the only one of the kids that was mentally ready or healthy enough to go to those classes. I picked it up like it was nothing. I was doing better than the parents. The parents were like – ‘What’s up with this kid? How does he know this stuff so fast?’ I learned – ‘Look, I’m not dying, but I’m going to have to live with this. I can be in denial, or I can take the bull by the horns and just keep going.’”
Evangelisto chose the latter but said it’s the unpredictability that’s the toughest part. “It happened a lot in the offseason because our morning workouts are at 5 a.m.” he said. “Obviously, with diabetes, you try to stay on a schedule. You’re eating a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner just so you know what insulin is in you at what time. Waking up at 5 in the morning just really throws a wrench into that. (Manero) could tell you – there’d be times I’d be going to them, I’d not be going to them. It was hard for me to prove to him, ‘I’m all in on this, but I physically can’t do this.’ That definitely caused problems, but it was something I tried to push through. Especially being a jayvee guy coming up trying to make a spot on varsity for yourself even knowing if you’re not going to get that many innings or whatever. It’s just the uncertainty.”
Evangelisto’s commitment was not lost on his coach. “It was tough for him in the winter,” Manero said. “It’s something he’s been battling. There’s no question, he’s got a strong arm, so we started getting a look at him as a pitcher. He still was never able to crack the starting lineup or get into the top tier of the depth chart in his position, but he competed, and he always kept coming back, he always kept working hard, and his attitude was always really good. I always want to find a way to keep really great people in our program as long as possible. He always wanted the chance to get better and always wanted instruction, so when you see a kid like that who really wants to learn and wants to have an opportunity and he’s a great kid, you find a place any way you can, and that’s how he ended up on our roster.”
Evangelisto acknowledged that being part of the Knights’ baseball program was significant. “It’s added a ton to my high school experience,” he said. “It really just kind of keeps me in line a little bit, and overall, it just makes me happier knowing that once I get out of school, I can go spend time with my buddies and decompress a little bit. Nothing else matters on the baseball field because you’re having fun.” For Manero, who has known Evangelisto since he was a youngster, this is an example of the baseball world coming full circle. “It’s a baseball family, they’ve been on the playing field their entire life,” the Knights’ coach said. “His family (parents Jim and Christine) – they are the nicest people in the world. Never complain about anything. He’s one of those guys – he helps us so much with the charts and things like that. He takes great pride in the fact that he’s good at that. It’s a good story of a kid who isn’t a superstar, but all the way up to the end of his high school days, he’s out there on the field doing whatever he can. His dad comes to all the games whether he’s playing or not. Who knows how much baseball he has left after this season, but for now he’s making the most of every minute and we’re better for it.”
Competing in sports at the collegiate level is not part of Evangelisto’s future. This fall, he will be attending East Stroudsburg University where he will follow in the footsteps of his sister, Alyssa, and major in nursing.
To read the remainder of Evangelisto’s story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/tyler-evangelisto-00107176
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