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 (Week of Oct. 8, 2014)
Katelyn Gilinger makes things happen on the soccer field. Forget the fact that the Springfield senior – who measures in at 5-1 – is small in stature. Numbers don’t begin to take into account the size of her heart. Gilinger is a dynamo and makes her presence felt. In a recent game against Upper Moreland, the Spartans took a tenuous lead into halftime. Gilinger scored a pair of goals in a five-minute span early in the second half. Things were never the same. “It was like she was on a mission,” coach Suzette Wolf said. “Upper Moreland had a corner kick, and Caroline Pape cleared the ball. The ball came to the halfway line where she won it. She beat the first defender, she beat the second defender. It was Katelyn against the world.” Gilinger took it in for the score, and the Spartans went on to earn a 5-0 win. “The team rallied around her,” Wolf said.
The Spartans’ coach uses the word relentless repeatedly when describing Gilinger’s style of play. “She has an aggressiveness that is incredible, and all of her skills doesn’t hurt either,” Wolf said. “She doesn’t stop, and she keeps the ball so close to her body.” That’s high praise for any player but even higher for the senior striker who is battling bronchiectasis. “My left lung is really weak – the doctors always thought I wouldn’t be able to breath right or keep up with people, which is really funny because I do,” Gilinger said. The Springfield senior was diagnosed with bronchiectasis when she was around seven, and initially there was talk of surgery to remove the piece of her lung that was a problem. She opted against it and gives no indication that she is battling anything other than her opponent when she’s on the soccer pitch, but as a precautionary, she is taking antibiotics. “I’m prone to pneumonia,” she said. “Usually in the fall and winter when the weather starts to change, I get more colds. Usually I take (antibiotics) at the beginning of the winter because that’s when people usually get sick. This year we’re going to try not taking it during winter because I’ve been doing good. It’s not a problem any more.”
Gilinger, who has been playing soccer for as long as she can remember, shares her passion for soccer with her father, Wayne Gilinger. She is hoping to continue her soccer career at the collegiate level and is looking at Division II schools. “If there’s an opportunity, I’ll take it,” she said. Gilinger is active in Springfield’s Inter-Act Club. “Our motto is ‘Help us help others,’ which is really cool,” she said. Although undecided on a major, Gilinger is considering pursuing something in the business field.
To read Gilinger’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/katelyn-gilinger-0047678
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Oct. 8, 2014)
An athlete and a musician. An early riser and a late bloomer. Upper Merion’s Thomas Ginnona seems to defy all the stereotypical labels. A drummer since grade school – drawing inspiration from classic rocker Carl Palmer while playing in his own cover band, The Salamanders outside of school and the advanced and jazz bands inside of it – it would be safe to say that Ginnona willingly marches to his own beat. “He’s a different kind of kid,” said Upper Merion cross country coach Lynda Newhart, who calls Ginnona “an example in perseverance” who can be an example for other athletes. “He could’ve quit a long time ago, but he stayed focused. In the past year, I think he just made the decision to put his heart and soul into it. You want to see every kid doing that. For me, seeing him succeed shows that every kid can work hard and do well. He’s not the kid who is a superstar. He’s the kid who has worked for four years to get where he is now.”
And where Ginnona is now is not at the front of the pack. But he is close enough that he could be considered a key “team player” – one nicknamed “Coach” by a captain for his team-first mentality – in what most outsiders see as a team sport. “He’s always been quiet, kind of shy,” Newhart said. “When they nicknamed him ‘Coach,’ it helped him open up. It was all positive. When they gave senior gifts, they gave him a whistle. He very much wants to see the team succeed.” Ginnona, who lists the team’s dream season when he was a sophomore not running with the varsity as his best memory, was always more concerned with how the Vikings did as a team.
Ginnona will be the first to admit that his first love, when it came to sports, was not running. A Phillies fan through thick and thin, he was a baseball guy. He played through middle school and as a freshman at Upper Merion before the axe fell. Fortunately, the AP student with a 3.7 GPA already had another sport to fall back on. To succeed in his separate but equal worlds – as a runner, student and musician – Ginnona finds himself often accomplishing more before the sun rises than many do in a day. When the cross country team does its morning water workouts, he needs to be in the pool by 6 a.m. He then needs to be at practice for whichever school band is in season by 7. When he takes a seat in his first class of the day – AP physics – he has already been immersed in his two passions. After school, more practices or a mid-week meet are followed by a night of studying in pursuit of his longtime goal of attending Penn State to pursue a career in electrical engineering with a likely minor in music.
To view Ginnona’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/thomas-ginnona-0047750
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