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 May 30, 2019
Randi Hess has the right idea when it comes to competing in sports. Listening to her coaches tell it, the Souderton senior finds joy – or creates it – whenever she steps on the field.“Randi has an intensity, which is good, but she wants to have fun,” Souderton lacrosse coach Nancy Offner said. “She wants to enjoy her teammates, and she wants to enjoy the experience regardless of the outcome. Watching Randi play, you can feel the enjoyment she gets out of it, and when she’s on the sidelines, she’s also very encouraging, very vocal for her teammates.” Field hockey coach Sue Casciato echoes similar sentiments. “Randi was the energy of the team, the positive vibe,” Casciato said. “She was the person that did the team cheer before games, she was the cheerleader on the field. She’s very happy, and she always has a smile.”Don’t be fooled by the perpetual smile or the happy disposition, Hess is a competitor. Casciato recalls her hockey team’s game at North Penn late in the season last fall. “She was really sick before the game, and I kept saying, ‘Are you sure you can play?’” the Indians’ coach said. “She didn’t even warm up, she just laid on the bleachers. She ended up having a huge game. She had two goals (including the game-winner in a 4-1 win). She rose to the occasion and played great.”
Lacrosse is the sport of choice for Hess, who will take her talents to Liberty University, and the senior midfielder elevated her game this season, finishing with 42 goals after scoring just 16 a year earlier. “We had 10 seniors last year, and she sort of hung back and let the seniors do their thing,” Offner said. “This year we were just really happy that she came out and played the way we knew she could play and was the leader on the field we knew she could be. ”Hess was elected a captain by her teammates and helped lead an Indian squad that – despite the loss of a large senior class – advanced to the District 1 3A Tournament.“She was definitely a key part of the team doing well,” Offner said. “We really needed a couple of players to step up and be the leaders because all of our leaders from last year graduated. She really took that to heart and did it both on and off the field and did it well.”
A first team all-league midfielder, Hess considered Drexel, Mercer and Bryant, but Liberty felt like the perfect fit. She plans to major in education with a minor in special education, pointing to her father, Rick Hess, who is the athletic director at Indian Crest, as her inspiration for pursuing a career in education. Her minor in special education reflects an interest that was sparked by a class called Partners.“It’s with special needs students and you’re doing schoolwork with them,” Hess said. “I worked with a wide variety of different students, and I built a lot of friendships. It was just something I was really passionate about and really enjoyed doing. ”Hess is a member of the National Honor Society, Souderton’s Athletic Leadership Council, Link Crew and student government.
She points to the friends she made along the way as the thing she will remember most about her years competing in high school sports. “What I’ll remember most about my high school athletic career are the students and coaches I was surrounded by,” she said. “They shaped my overall high school experience into a very positive one. I made friendships here that I know will last a lifetime. ”Best of all, she had fun doing it and made it more enjoyable for others as well. “She’s just a great all-around kid,” Offner said. “She comes from a great family, and she’s going to do great things at Liberty.”
To read Hess’ complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/randi-hess-0085347
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of May 30, 2019
Robbie Kay insists that he isn’t crazy. Perhaps crazy isn’t the correct word. After a quick chuckle, John Fitzpatrick, Kay’s lacrosse coach at Council Rock North, said that “moxie” might be a more apt description. Either way, it takes a special kind of inner fortitude to stand inside the goalie crease and face shot after shot at point blank range, the velocity so fierce that the balls more resemble projectile missiles coming straight at Kay, who, as a lacrosse goalie, has just his eyes, stick and a minimal amount of padding to protect him from impact. “Goalies in lacrosse, it’s just a different mentality,” Fitzpatrick said. “Not everybody can do it. You have to have moxie, and yes, even a little craziness, to step in front of that ball coming at you at around 85 miles per hour and stop it with your body. It’s definitely a unique position.”
Perhaps making the story even more interesting is that before he came to North, Kay primarily played as an attackman on offense, which requires considerably more running around and is physical in its own right. However, had Kay stayed on offense, he might have finished his high school career with far fewer ball-shaped welts on his body. That said, coming into Kay’s freshman season four years ago, North needed goalie depth, and Kay happily, and perhaps a little crazily, volunteered his services. He manned the position for the varsity for a portion of both his freshman and sophomore years and was a fixture in the net the last two years.
Fitzpatrick, Kay’s coach at North, got to the school four years ago, coinciding with Kay’s freshman year. The two have been attached at the hip since they both arrived on campus at the same time.“It’s going to be very strange without him,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ll miss him. He’s been my goalie throughout that time period, and it will be different not having that guy that comes in and gives you a chance to win every game. He anchored our defense, and I think he was one of the most underrated goalies in our league. He’s worked extremely hard to get to Bryn Athyn. And not only that, but he’s one of the nicest kids you’ll ever meet. He truly is an ambassador to our sport, and he knows everybody in the lacrosse community. Off the field, he’s just very talkative and everybody at school knows him. He’s a bright spot, on and off the lacrosse field.”
When it came time to choose a college, Kay decided a smaller school would be a better fit, and he loved the idea of being an athlete on campus that everyone knew as a dependable, winning player. He also said the environment at Bryn Athyn, a school with an enrollment of less than 500 students, felt like a close-knit family. Kay gravitates toward math and science classes, and recently took some business classes with the assumption that he would major in that field at Bryn Athyn. However, he soon had a change of heart, choosing psychology with the ultimate goal of becoming a police officer. Kay comes from a family of law enforcement and emergency responders: his father has been a firefighter for 35 years, his mother is a medic, both of his grandfathers were firefighters and he said about half of his remaining family, including several cousins, are police officers. Kay himself has been a volunteer firefighter since he was 14, the earliest age you can sign up to start learning about fire safety and emergency response. “(Being a firefighter) has been a bonding experience for my dad and I where we can share our similarities,” Kay said. “My dad has taught me a lot about safety, and so have many of the firefighters I’ve been around. It’s just been a big bonding experience for my family, and they’ve helped push me in the right direction.”
To read Kay’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/robbie-kay-0085348
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