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 Jan. 13, 2020
Bean Hughes is a rare breed. And even that doesn’t begin to describe the Upper Moreland senior. Yes, Hughes plays three sports and plays all three extremely well, a rarity in today’s era of specialization. She played first singles for the tennis team and was a two-year captain. She was first team all-league in basketball and is a two-year captain, and those are her secondary sports. It’s softball that has landed Hughes a scholarship to Kutztown University. But that’s stating the obvious. It’s much more than that.
Consider only this past fall’s tennis season. The UM senior slipped and fell during the Golden Bears’ fourth match of the season at Upper Dublin, breaking her right wrist. It would have made perfect sense if she had decided to take the rest of the season off. Tennis, after all, is the third sport in her list of three, but that was not a consideration. “She decided she was going to teach herself to play tennis left handed,” UM coach Kristin Summers said. “I’ve been playing tennis since I was eight years old, and I can tell you – I cannot play left handed. She’s just a natural athlete. Anything she wants to do she probably can do.” With a cast still on her right wrist, Hughes came back and played second doubles. By the SOL Tournament, she was playing number one doubles and – along with her partner Jocelyn Baumeister – advanced to the district tournament.
Listening to UM coach Matt Carroll tell it, Hughes – a freshman when Carroll took over the helm - is something close to a marvel on the basketball court. Hughes earned a spot in the starting lineup as a freshman for a Golden Bear squad that was 0-22. Two short years later, UM was 14-9 and Hughes earned first team all-league honors. That success didn’t just happen. Hughes worked hard at the sport. “She's been a kid who’s known this entire time that once her senior year is over basketball is over,” Carroll said. “We’ll have home games, and I’ll get to the gym around four and she’s already been there for an hour.” It was not uncommon for Hughes to leave her high school softball practice and go directly to the basketball team’s open gym. “She’ll still be in her softball uniform – she just puts on her basketball sneakers and will work out as long as possible,” Carroll said. “She’ll say, ‘Okay, coach, I have to leave. I have softball practice,’ and then she’d go to her travel team. It makes me want to work harder. Everything she’s done has been in our gym. She doesn’t play AAU, she doesn’t go to camp - she’s a very self-made basketball player. I think Bean could easily be a Division II basketball player. She just makes everything go and everything possible.”
It’s easy to take Hughes’ ability on the softball diamond for granted since it is, after all, her number one sport. A first team all-league selection at shortstop last spring, Hughes hit .561 with eight home runs, nine doubles, 23 RBIs and 30 runs scored, and she makes it look easy. “Her athleticism, her knowledge of the game – she thinks the game,” UM coach Scott Ludlow said. “Some of the stuff you see her do on the field, it just comes natural. It’s spectacular to watch, but it’s just the way she plays. She’s just always been a really hard worker, and you look at the way kids react around her and to her – she’s not just a great softball player, she’s a great person.” Added Carroll, “Every coach deserves a player like Bean once in their career. I started with her.”
To read Hughes’ complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/bean-hughes-0089257
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Jan 13, 2020
Nobody could have possibly known it at the time, but getting cut from his seventh-grade basketball team completely transformed Logan Flynn’s life for the better. Shortly thereafter, the now Hatboro-Horsham senior had a chance encounter with Trent Mongillo. Mongillo is the high school varsity head wrestling coach, but back then, he was coaching the middle school program. Mongillo saw Flynn lingering on the steps outside of the wrestling room one day, and seeing this 12-year-old kid who was big for his age piqued the coach’s interest. Mongillo decided to introduce himself. “He told me he had gotten cut from his basketball team, and I said, ‘That’s a good thing, because you just made the wrestling team,’” Mongillo recalled with a laugh. “I told him he could start tomorrow, and he just told me, ‘OK, so what do I need to do?’ He didn’t have the right shoes, but he still showed up the next day.”
Flynn had never wrestled before, nor had he ever thought about the prospect of trying his luck on the mat. However, he had a powerful physique that was tailor-made for wrestling, and by his own admission, was a very physical kid with a football background who enjoyed playing rough. In hindsight, Flynn’s experience only made him wish he had started wrestling earlier in his life, but being indoctrinated into the sport later than most of the other kids provided him a built-in respect and appreciation for the dedication wrestlers have for their craft. “I walked in that room the day after I met Trent and I never looked back,” he said. “The learning curve was tough. I didn’t even have the right shoes for the first two weeks. At first, I got my butt kicked every day until I decided I was tired of that and wanted to kick their butts, so I decided right then to get better every day. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but the practices were fun and I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder. I lost the first couple of matches, but I stuck with it, got more serious about it, and eventually things started working out for me.”
Flynn, who wrestlers for the Hatters in the 220-lb weight class, has elevated himself to a two-time captain and two-time champion at the Wetzel Classic. He was a regional qualifier a year ago, falling just short of making it to the state tournament, and now has a career record of 81-28, including a 17-2 mark this season. If Flynn stays healthy the rest of the season, he should be able to reach the coveted 100-win milestone, a feat all high school wrestlers strive for but few actually achieve. “Logan carries that torch of the hardest worker in everything he does: wrestling room, weight room, classroom,” Mongillo said. “He is one of those guys who can take charge and be a leader of a team. Myself and his teammates trust him a lot to make sure things are done the right way. He knows it’s a journey, and he is not the type of kid who will quit at anything.”
When he’s not competing or in school, Flynn is a very busy teenager. For starters, he was recently named 69th Eagle Scout of Troop 200, and this is something he has participated in for most of his life. On top of that, Flynn generously volunteers his time to work with the younger wrestlers in the Hatboro-Horsham pipeline. At Hatboro-Horsham, he is a member of Link Crew. Flynn would definitely like to wrestle in college, but he is still evaluating his options. Flynn said he’s applied to a couple of schools and is considering some others.
To read Flynn’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/logan-flynn-0089254
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