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 June 18, 2014)
Elena Maria Romesburg is defined by her fiercely competitive nature on both the lacrosse and hockey fields. “She was always giving her best, no matter what her best was that day, and she was always giving her all for the team,” field hockey coach Courtney Hughes said of the Central Bucks West senior. “You don’t find that. That’s not something you can teach a kid. That’s something they have inside them. You can be successful when you have a kid like that on a team.” Coach Tara Schmucker echoed similar sentiments about the senior captain of both her hockey and lacrosse teams. “Her competitiveness goes everywhere with her,” the Bucks’ lacrosse coach said. “With her intensity and her work ethic, which is sometimes overlooked because she makes it look so easy, she’s made herself into a gamer, but she wasn’t born one. She worked hard to get to that level. It’s the same in the classroom. She’s in the top four percent of her class. She’s an amazing student, and she’s just an amazing athlete.”
Romesburg takes that competitive drive to every area of her life. “I compete in just about anything,” she said. “I race my brothers to see how fast they can read a book, stuff like that. I’m just really intense.” On the athletic field, that intensity is one of Romesburg’s best attributes. She led her lacrosse team with 96 draw controls, 128 ground balls and 34 caused turnovers. Those stats are the result of sheer hustle and desire, and Romesburg has plenty of both. For good measure, she also was the team’s leading goal scorer with 67 and added 15 assists. “I think her offense is great, but I think her ability to get the ball is her best asset,” Schmucker said. Romesburg was rewarded for her excellence with a first team 2014 Philly Region U.S. Lacrosse Association All-American selection. For three straight years, she was a first team all-league selection after earning third team honors as a freshman. “Even her freshman year coming in, I knew she was going to be a game changer,” Schmucker said. “Just her tenacity and passion on the field is very evident in how she plays.”
Romesburg turned her talents on the lacrosse field into a scholarship to James Madison University. She is undecided on a major. A fixture on the distinguished honor roll, Romeburg is a member of the National Honor Society and was in the top 20 of her graduating class.
To read Romesburg’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/elena-romesburg-0044917
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of June 18, 2014)
If it is true you only get one chance to make a first impression, then Chris Kersey hit one out of the park with North Penn baseball coach Kevin Manero. It goes back to when Kersey was in ninth grade at Pennbrook Middle School. The only player of his age on the Nor-Gwyn American Legion squad coach by Manero, Kersey didn’t need to reach too deep into his skill set as a future engineer to compute the shortest distance between two points. Instead of going home, 30 minutes in the other direction, he literally crossed the street to Hostelley Field and passed the time by doing some schoolwork. Seeing this from a teen, as opposed to zoning out with ear buds or pecking away on his phone, let Manero know what kind of young man he was going to be coaching – first for Nor-Gwyn American Legion and then North Penn beginning the following year. “He immediately struck me as a heady kid and a very hard worker,” Manero said. “His focus on his academics and his readiness on the field never waned between that time and now. Chris gets it and so do his parents. They really are a strong model of how a high school student-athlete should be handled. Chris was always his own advocate, he always had the big picture in perspective, and his approach was always team first. He got everything he could out of his physical attributes, and his awareness, focus, and intellect on the field took over from there.”
The big picture of Kersey reveals an incoming freshman at Lehigh University’s prestigious IBE (Integrated Business and Engineering) program who will enter the five-year, double major challenge having graduated 25th in a class of more than one thousand at North Penn. Beyond the baseball diamond where he played a lead role in the Knights’ Cinderella run to the state title a year ago, Kersey is the complete package. He found time to contribute to the basketball team as a backup point guard and took part in the school’s Key Club and National Honor Society. He also delves into music as a self-taught guitarist and pianist.
Kersey received a lot of interest to continue playing baseball at the Division III level and gave it serious thought. But when Lehigh accepted him in the IBE program, which spawns some of the world’s top engineering consultants, he had to make a choice. “There were some strong programs, but I had to consider my academics and the right route for my future,” Kersey said. He will have the opportunity to try out for Lehigh’s team as a walk on. “Chris is a great kid and a great teammate,” Manero said. “I’m not sure I have coached a kid more respected by his peers than Chris has been over the years. The way he carries himself and conducts himself inside and outside the lines serve as models of a truly admirable student-athlete.”
To view Kersey’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/chris-kersey-0044915.
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