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 Nov. 23, 2020
Alena Doll is one of those players coaches covet. A captain of her field hockey team, the soft-spoken Wissahickon senior leads by example. She gets along with everyone and is welcome in any group and respected by teammates of every grade. Doll is low maintenance and coachable, gives 110 percent effort every time she steps on the field, and she does all of this without fanfare. “You don’t have to be flashy to be a really awesome player,” Wissahickon coach Lucy Gil said. “That’s Alena. She’s a great kid. I would take 11 of her. Absolutely, in a minute.” A fixture at left defensive back for the past three years, Doll has quietly excelled. “If you think about it, playing on the left against people that are coming at you from the stick side – that’s one of the hardest positions to play,” Gil said. “Her stick is always on the ground, so no matter where you try to get around her, you really have to worry about her stick being on the ground. It’s never up. She’s always on her mark, she never jumps from one person to the next just because the ball goes there. We could count on her to always do her job.”
Field hockey is just one small piece of Doll’s life. While she excels on the hockey field, her resume off the field is even more impressive. The Wissahickon senior was part of her school’s gifted program her first three years of high school, opting out this year due in part to the pandemic and the task of completing college applications. Doll is enrolled in four AP classes, she is co-president of the Future Teachers of America Club and co-president of the German National Honor Society. She is also a member of the National Honor Society. If that’s not enough, Doll has been a Girl Scout since she was in kindergarten and remains active, somehow finding time for the activities despite her busy schedule.
According to Gil, Doll was a natural choice for captain. “She leads by example,” the Trojans’ coach said. “She runs hard, she trains hard. She is always sweet and kind and willing to teach somebody something. You can’t get by her on the field, but she’s not out there grabbing attention, making you look silly or anything like that. She’s doing her job. I like players you don’t have to worry about. She’s low maintenance. She really is. I don’t have to worry about her, I don’t have to tell her what to do. I know she’s going to go out there and give it everything she’s got.” Doll brought a unique perspective to her position of leadership. “My main friend group – almost none of them do any sort of sports,” she said. “They’re not on any of the teams that I play on, so it’s sort of always making new friends, and it’s just an entirely different group of people. I feel like because I don’t attach myself – it has pushed me to reach out and try to get along with everyone. Talk to people, make sure freshmen that are sitting on the sidelines or edges of practice aren’t feeling left out - that I’ll be willing to strike up a conversation with anyone who doesn’t have anyone else.”
As for her future, Doll - who would like to continue her hockey career at the club level - is looking into majoring in building sciences or sustainable architecture. “I’ve narrowed my (college choices) down pretty far knowing the programs I’m looking for,” Doll said. “One of the top ones is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Some of my other top schools are Northeastern and the University of Hartford.” Wherever Doll ends up, the Wissahickon senior’s future promises to be bright, and listening to her coach tell it – for reasons that go well beyond what she will contribute in the classroom and workplace. “I don’t know how to describe her,” Gil said. “She’s super kind and super sweet, just a lovely person. There’s just something really special about her in a very quiet way though.”
To read Doll’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/alena-doll-0092251
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Nov. 23, 2020
Dick Butkus. Chuck Bednarik. Jack Lambert. Junior Seau. Ray Nitschke. Nick Buoniconti. Andre Tippett. Bill Bergey. Willie Lanier. All have two things in common: They are among a long list of the best middle linebackers of all-time, and all played the game of football with a nasty disposition. Where does that leave Quakertown senior Micah Kunkle at a school that has its own recent history of fire-breathing middle linebackers – Nick Levinski (Moravian), Noah Wood (Ithaca), Hunter Nice (semipro in Australia)? “He’s probably one of the nicest middle linebackers we’ve ever had,” said head coach George Banas. So how does Kunkle walk the fine line between getting the job done, with plenty of room to spare, without being mean about it? Preparation and more preparation. And when he is done preparing, he prepares some more. “It’s not necessarily intentional,” said the 5-10, 190-pounder. “I try to be intense on the field, but I try not to carry that with me everywhere. I try not to be aggressive and intense off of it.”
By the time he walks onto a field come Friday night or Saturday afternoon, Kunkle may as well have the other team’s playbook in his hip pocket. “He is a highly intellectual player,” said Banas of the two-year starter who also plays some tight end on offense. “He’s just real methodical on the field in terms of progressing though reads and making plays.” Banas said the coaching staff sort of tabbed Kunkle to be an apprentice at linebacker going back to his sophomore year. “We were hopeful,” he said. “Every 2-3 years, a sophomore is able to come in at linebacker and work next to a veteran. He understood the game. He was physically up to the challenge by the time he was a junior.”
Kunkle – the son of Ben and Krista Kunkle -- said it dates back his freshman year when he was approached by Banas after a wrestling practice. “He said that you work hard in the offseason and learn a lot and watch a lot of film, you’ll have a chance to play under the lights this year,” he recalled. “That really got me excited. Then we started doing summer stuff and I started learning backside middle linebacker from a senior. At that time, it was Nick Levinski. He really took me under his wing. He was a really good mentor.” And now, Kunkle is paying it forward with Kaden Roesener. “He was injured his sophomore season, so he really just started playing high school football this year,” said Kunkle. “He is the other starting linebacker. I try to answer all his questions, with anything he needs to know, and he has taken off with it. It’s great.” Being at the epicenter of the defense, part of Kunkle’s role is leadership – and he is one by example and by being vocal when needed. “He is a little bit of both,” Banas said of the team captain. “He leads by example just by being at every single offseason session, but he verbally takes control in the huddle.”
While he has the talent to play football at some level in college, Kunkle will be attending Messiah University, which does not have a football team. “I’ve two or three concussions – that we know about – from both football and wrestling,” he said. “Also, I view academics as more important than athletics. It’s more of a sure future. Even though I love the game of football, I just don’t think it’s realistic to put my eggs into that basket.” This comes as no surprise to his coach. “I like to think of him as the boy next door, the kind of boy you would want your daughter to date and bring home,” Banas said. “He treats everybody as he wants to be treated. That’s just how he lives his life.” And a major part of how he lives his life his faith, which includes deep involvement in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and formerly in the school’s Best Buddies program, and spending time in the outdoors instead of at parties. “I have been a Christian since I was five,” said Kunkle. “For me, that means having your own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That means talking to him and hearing what he has to say about what is going on in your life, too. Not audibly, of course, but through stuff that happens in your life.”
To read Kunkle’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/micah-kunkle-0092250
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