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 Sept. 5, 2012)
Abby Mummert is the lone captain and undisputed leader of the Central Bucks South volleyball team. The senior outside hitter, a first team all-league performer, is capable of putting up big numbers, but she is never satisfied. “Abby gets frustrated if she makes a mistake - I think she wants to be perfect,” coach Ulana Keer said. “Every touch she has on the ball – she wants it to be perfect. She has very high standards.” Keer calls it the ‘Abby Standard,’ and for a Titan squad that is coming off back-to-back championship seasons, the burden of trying to keep that tradition alive has been placed firmly on the shoulders of Mummert. “She’s a very powerful player on the court, and she’s going to have to come up with big numbers this year,” Keer said. “She’s going to have to take the brunt of the wins and losses because it’s going to fall a lot on her shoulders, and that’s hard.
Hard for some, a welcome challenge to Mummert. “There’s a lot of pressure, but I don’t know – I like the pressure,” she said. “It gives me a little umph to go out and play my heart out every single match.” Mummert, a four-year starter, has been the cornerstone of a CB South program that Keer built from the ground up. This year, she is the centerpiece of her squad. “Everything we do revolves around Abby,” Keer said.
Last year, Mummert moved from the middle to the outside. She also began playing all the way around and has continued to excel. “When she made that transition to the back row, the whole game of volleyball opened up to her, and she got a better view of what she needed to do defensively and offensively,” Keer said. “I think her heart became entrenched, so to speak, in the game once she became a complete player.”
Mummert has already made a verbal commitment to take her talents to Shippensburg University next year where she will major in elementary education. “It felt like home, it felt like family,” Mummert said of Shippensburg. “And that’s what I like about volleyball. It always felt like family.”
To read Mummert’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/abby-mummert-0027587.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Sept. 5, 2012)
A.J. Morgan boasts an impressive resume. But it’s not the fact that he’s an Eagle Scout or boasts a dazzling 4.27 grade point average that sets the Central Bucks West senior apart. Rather it’s the character he displayed when faced with the kind of adversity that would have prompted most athletes to at least entertain thoughts of walking away. That, however, was never a consideration. Instead of sitting out the season to recuperate after undergoing surgery on Aug. 25 of last year, Morgan elected to compete in last fall’s cross country season. “Most kids would be content to throw in the towel and say, ‘Well, it’s right at the beginning of the season, I won’t do cross country,’ but he did the opposite,” coach Greg Wetzel said. “He totally stepped up for us, and he fought and fought and fought. A lot of it was behind the scenes. He was the 12th man in our first meet, the 10th man the next time and he clawed his way up into our top five by the end.”
Morgan’s ordeal began last May when he could not shake the nausea that plagued him for several months. By the beginning of June, he also began experiencing pain. A series of tests were inconclusive, and all the while, Morgan continued to train with his cross country team. “As summer went on, I could do less and less because the pain got worse and my ability was limited,” he said. On Aug. 25, Morgan – who attended cross country practice the day before - underwent laparoscopic surgery to remove his appendix. Two weeks after undergoing surgery, Morgan began training with his cross country team again. He had a breakout performance at the William Tennent Invitational, and by districts he finished fifth for his team and scored points for his squad. “It was an incredible moment after all that I’d been through that I was able to do that for me team,” Morgan said.
This fall, Morgan is one of the top runners on a young West squad. “We have some outstanding freshmen that are contributing, and he’s been a really good mentor and role model to them,” Wetzel said. “He’s a very quiet kid, but what I really like about him is he speaks up when it matters. That’s very outside of his comfort zone, which is what’s so impressive about it.”
Morgan’s medical issues last summer have played a role in his decision to pursue a career as a physician’s assistant. He has shadowed a pair of doctors as well as a nurse practitioner, and the experiences confirmed his decision.
To view Morgan’s complete profile, please click on the following link:
http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/aj-morgan-0027586.
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