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 Sept. 23, 2019
Mention the sport of field hockey to Abby Ludlow, and the Pennridge senior can’t hide her enthusiasm. Granted, she wasn’t introduced to hockey until she was in seventh grade. As a matter of fact, soccer was her sport of choice until then, but once she picked up a hockey stick, she was hooked.“Field hockey was brand new to me,” Ludlow said. “Now it’s my senior year, and it’s my passion. I want to play it the rest of my life.”Hockey might not be a lifelong sport for the senior captain, who aspires one day to be a doctor, but there’s no mistaking the fact that she’s enjoying every minute while she’s playing. With the graduation of the Rams’ two big scorers from last year’s squad, Ludlow and her fellow captains, Shannon Griffin and Macy Price, had an idea.“When we met in February, they said – ‘Even though we aren’t necessarily crazy skilled, we can play for each other, and as that happens, we’ll be successful,” coach Becky Spahr said. “Our captains have really defined what they want our team to be about, and we’re working on creating a field hockey family. Abby is a huge part of not only that idea but really making sure that the whole team from the freshman jayvee players through our seniors all feel like they’re part of the group, and they are important to the team regardless of what they do on the field.”
Listening to Ludlow tell it, the idea of creating a family had its roots when she was a freshman.“The squad had a really good family dynamic, and I think it really made the team work,” she said. “I feel as though a team plays really well together when you know each other personally and you bond. I think that’s what really set the senior year dynamic of the family idea.” The family concept was put to an early test for Ludlow, who is joined on the forward line by a pair of freshmen – Payton Muth and Hayley Borneman. The team’s goalie, Maia Machado, is also a freshman. “I never met them before in my life, and I can honestly say that they’re my best friends,” Ludlow said. “Over the summer, we do workouts, they came to some of them, but I didn’t know them that well. I knew they were good players from (Pennridge) North Middle School, and they were really nice. I drive them home and everywhere and now we’re really good friends.”
An added bonus to the team’s camaraderie is the fact that the Rams have experienced success. After 10 games, the Rams were 6-3-1, just three wins shy of last year’s win total for the entire season. It’s a record that has surprised even the optimistic Ludlow.“I’m not going to lie – I didn’t think we were going to do that well this year because of how we lost our scorers from last year,” she said. “That’s why we made the whole family thing.We just wanted to have fun, and look where we are now. We’re all just shocked.”The outgoing Lulow, according to her coach, is the consummate team player and has played a significant role in this year’s squad coming together.Abby is really good at making sure that everyone is aware of their role, and she does a really good job of making girls feel like they contribute regardless of what they are doing on the field,” Spahr said. It’s an awesome leadership quality, and she’s done an awesome job leading the way.”
Ludlow also is a member of the winter and spring track and field team where she competes in sprints and long jump. She has volunteered her time to coach aspiring track athletes with Pennridge jump coach Kevin Wills at the Quakertown YMCA. But it’s hockey that’s her passion, and Ludlow hopes to compete at the collegiate level - whether it be club or Division III – while she pursues her ultimate goal of becoming a doctor.“I’m interested in going to Johns Hopkins, and they’re a D3 field hockey team,” said Ludlow.An excellent student, Ludlow, who takes mainly AP classes, is a member of the National Honor Society. She is also a member of Exec Council.Aside from her school activities, Ludlow is active in her church youth group. She also finds time to work, cleaning for older families in need of assistance and working at Ludlow Flower Farms.Ask Ludlow what field hockey has added to her high school experience, and coming as no surprise, the family theme resurfaces.“It’s the friends I’ve made really,” she said. “I came into this school with a small group of friends, and with field hockey, I have 30-something girls I call my best friends.”
To read Ludlow’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/abby-ludlow-0087233
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Sept.23, 2019
If you happened to be driving in Doylestown at 5:45 a.m. on Halloween last year, you probably were left bewildered by the sight of three young men sprinting down the side of the road dressed as a banana, a superhero and a giant mustard bottle. The sight would be enough for a bleary-eyed motorist to wonder if he or she was still fast asleep; however, if you happen to know Bret Hatzinger, then this scene likely made perfect sense. Hatzinger is a senior on the Central Bucks West cross country team, and he fills an important role. No, he’s not the fastest Bucks runner, nor has he won the most races; in fact, this is his first year on varsity, and because the team is so deep, he only sometimes falls inside the fastest seven runners that constitute the varsity roster. You see, cross country is a grueling, unforgiving sport on the body, featuring nonstop sprinting and daily 10-mile runs, often on hilly, difficult terrain. Hatzinger has taken on the responsibility to make the daily grind fun for himself, teammates and coaches, whether that’s organizing a singing-while-running acapella group called The Foot Notes, trying to come up with the best possible name for head coach John Mahoney’s now eight-month-old child, or, yes, dress up in Halloween costumes on predawn runs through town. “Cross country can sometimes be a brutal sport,” Mahoney said. “Every day it’s just you beating yourself up. Day in and day out, that’s tough, and Bret makes practice enjoyable for everyone, even us coaches. When things get hard and guys need the boost, he finds a way to make you laugh and cheer you up, but he also motivates you. You don’t always find that balance in cross country, but he has that way about him.”
Growing up, Hatzinger played soccer, basketball and baseball. In fact, he never ran competitively until his freshman year. Immediately, Hatzinger thought he had made a terrible mistake, given the amount of running involved. He admitted the only thing that got him through the first two or three weeks was personal pride. Then, he began to grow close with his teammates, mainly because the seniors established a welcoming atmosphere, the same one Hatzinger fosters to this day. He stuck with track, ran it again in the spring and started to really fall in love with the sport. “I got that first taste of the feeling when you run a personal record in a race,” he said. “It’s absolutely addicting. ” Once spring track was over, Hatzinger assumed he was done until the winter. That was before one of his graduating track teammates suggested Hatzinger try cross country if he indeed liked what track had to offer. At first, Hatzinger demurred. After all, he still didn’t see himself as a runner, but eventually he relented and gave cross country a shot sophomore year. “Now,” he said. “It’s one of my absolute favorite things.”
Hatzinger doesn’t know what school he will attend just yet, and he’s still interested in running at the next level, either on a team at a Division III school or at the club level of a bigger school. Hatzinger’s academic resume should afford him the school of his choice: he’s a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish National Honor Society, was the recipient of the AP Biology Award and American Chemistry Society Award, and, last week, discovered he was one of 19 seniors in the Central Bucks School District to be named a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist. Hatzinger is also involved extracurricularly outside of sports as the co-president of the Young Democrats Club and works in the CB West school store. “He’s very unique,” Mahoney said. “We won’t find a guy to replace Bret that’s just like him, and that’s fine by me because he’s a special guy that will stand out in any career. There hasn’t been one day where he hasn’t put a smile on everyone’s face at practice; at the same time, he works hard and strikes this great balance that will be hard to replace. He’s just a good person who has a great perspective on school, athletics and life in general.”
To read Hatzinger’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/bret-hatzinger-0087230
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