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 March 21, 2019
Jenna Rodebaugh’s high school athletic career did not provide her with a lot of postseason berths or shelves full of all-league accolades. While she experienced two winning seasons and a district playoff game in her junior year for the William Tennent girls’ soccer team, fate was less kind to the girls’ basketball squad. Locked into the brutal SOL National Conference after two years in the equally tough Continental, Tennent often found itself near the bottom of the conference, and did not post a winning league or overall record during Rodebaugh’s four years with the team. And she wouldn’t change that at all. Because when it comes to the things that matter most to Rodebaugh, her time on the soccer pitch and the basketball court at William Tennent gave her everything she could have hoped for, and so much more. “Playing soccer and basketball for William Tennent has meant everything to me,” Rodebaugh said. “Without it, my whole experience at Tennent would have been completely different, and I definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. Playing sports has made my experience here 100 times better, it’s helped my academics, I’ve met friends, made memories that will last forever. Down the line, I’m not going to remember our records or the scores of the games, I’m going to remember the bus rides and having fun in practice and being there with my team. We never got to districts in basketball – that doesn’t matter to me. Who’s going to remember that? We got to districts my junior year in soccer and I was ecstatic about that, but that’s not what I’m going to remember down the line. My motivation was just to be the player you are for the team. I’m not looking for that award, I just want to be out there and do my best.”
Tennent soccer coach Bill Hontz, who coaches the Log College Middle School girls’ soccer team in the spring, remembers Rodebaugh possessing all the tools to be a leader even when she was a preteen. “I’ve coached Jenna for six years going back to middle school, and she always displayed great leadership right from the start,” Hontz said. “From middle school into high school and this year as a senior, everybody has always respected her. Jenna has a great work ethic, never misses a practice, always keeps a positive attitude. Even when we had some rough patches, she always kept her head up, tried to encourage everyone else. As a leader and a captain, she’d say what had to be said, but she was always encouraging and positive with how she did it.”
Basketball coach Laura Whitney echoed similar sentiments about her senior captain. “Jenna is the kid who is going to get the other girls into it if they’re not playing up to the energy level they need,” the Panthers’ coach said. “She’s always been vocal in practice, in the locker room, she knows how to motivate her teammates. Jenna is a true team player, she’s always understood what her role was, never complained, she’s supportive and encouraging, and this year as a senior and a captain, she really took it upon herself to try to help the other girls along, getting them adjusted to playing at the high school level, being a big sister to the younger players.”
Rodebaugh attacks her schoolwork with the same intensity as she does her athletic endeavors. She’s taken numerous AP and Honors level courses this year and throughout her time at Tennent, and boasts one of the top GPAs in her class. She also serves as Vice President of the Athletic Council, is a member of Student Government, and belongs to the National Honor Society, Science Honor Society, and English Honor Society. In the fall, Rodebaugh will head to State College to study Nutritional Sciences at Penn State.
To read Rodebaugh’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/jenna-rodebaugh-0083502
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of March 21, 2019
Anthony Tomassetti has vivid memories of the first time he saw his parents. The Plymouth Whitemarsh senior was 16 years old. Granted, he had seen his parents before, but because of a progressive eye disease known as keratoconus, Tomassetti’s view of them had always been distorted. Very distorted. All of that changed in October of 2017 when he underwent surgery in both eyes. “When I saw my mom for the first time, I couldn’t help but get a little teary-eyed,” Tomassetti wrote in his college essay. “My mom is so beautiful; her hair has eight different shades of red and blonde in it. She has the most warm and welcoming smile, and her eyes can light up a room. ”To say Tomassetti’s eye surgery was life changing would be an understatement. “Until my surgeries, I had never seen how magnificent this world truly is,” he said. “It is full of the most beautiful details, and because of this, I fell in love with photography. Now that I can see, I see the beauty in everything.”
The ability to see clearly impacted every aspect of his life, including baseball – his passion since he was a youngster. “Playing baseball without my contacts, prior to being diagnosed, was extremely dangerous,” he said. “I was asking for a ball in the teeth. When the ball was in the air, it would basically disappear. When I put on the contacts, I realized that I could actually see the seams on the ball. I used to have to read the person’s body motion to guess where the throw would be. All these things helped explain why I struggled with many facets of the game. So when the doctor gave me the contacts and I could play baseball safely, it was truly the best gift I have ever received.”
Tomassetti - a four-year varsity player – has been a gift of sorts to coach Chris Manero and the PW baseball program. “I couldn’t imagine having too many players like him ever in terms of the kind of kid he is in terms of the work ethic, the full package,” the PW coach said. “I’ve been coaching probably a total of 16 or 17 years, and he’s top tier of all time in terms of everything – as a person, as a leader, as a worker.“He’s symbolic of a really memorable class of seniors. In a way, I see him as a symbol of that class.”
A captain of this year’s PW squad, Tomassetti was 5-2, 125 pounds when he was thrust into the starting lineup as a freshman. “It was the worst season of my career, but I learned so much with the adversity and learning to deal with failure and learning to come back and fight harder and never give up on yourself or your teammates, just pure grit,” Tomassetti said. Grit has become a theme of sorts for Tomassetti, who wears it on his undershirts every game day and also has that one word on his bat. He needed all the grit he could muster when the summer after his freshman year he sustained a serious elbow injury that required surgery.
Tomassetti’s baseball career won’t end when he leaves Plymouth Whitemarsh. He will continue his career at Gwynedd Mercy University where he will major in marketing and also pursue his interest in art. “I was trying to decide whether I wanted to play college baseball,” Tomassetti said. “I was on the fence, and I saw a picture of myself on the t-ball field with my hands raised up in the air, and I was like, ‘Why wouldn’t I do that?’ This little kid, that was his dream – to play baseball. I really love baseball. It’s been my passion my whole life.”
To read Tomassetti’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/anthony-tomassetti-0083506
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