Soccer, Basketball
Favorite athlete: Sabrina Ionescu
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the league my senior year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I was playing against two of my AAU teammates and tried to save a ball from going out of bounds, but accidentally threw the ball really hard at one of their faces
Music on playlist: Country, rap, and pop music
Future plans: Study business/pre-law at Franklin and Marshall
Words to live by: "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."— Robert F. Kennedy
One goal before turning 30: Graduate law school
One thing people don’t know about me: I have a peanut allergy
By Mary Jane Souder
Fiona Reckner is a natural leader. Plain and simple.
Next year, the Council Rock South senior will enroll in a pre-law track at Franklin & Marshall, and if Nick Heim – her high school soccer coach - ever needs legal advice, it’s a safe bet he will look no further than his former captain.
Turns out the Council Rock South girls’ soccer coach is more than a little impressed with Reckner’s leadership and ability to inspire, recalling halftime of the Golden Hawks’ District 1 4A quarterfinal game against Spring-Ford in the fall of 2023.
Reckner, then a junior, did not serve in the official role of captain, and soccer is not her primary sport (basketball is).
“The thing that always comes to mind about her – her junior year we went on that magical run as the 21 seed,” Heim said. “In a week, we beat the 12, 5 and 4 (seeds), and we were playing from behind the last two games.
“We were down 2-0 to Spring-Ford in the district quarterfinals, and we just played a really poor first half. I was like – ‘Oh man, maybe we’ve just run out of steam.’ It’s the first time in my coaching career that I never said a word to the kids at halftime because as soon as we met in the corner – no one asked her to do it, she didn’t need a title to do it.
“She just – I don’t want to say laid into them, but she just gave a reality check of where we had been and what we needed to do to get back to our principles. She got done talking after about five minutes. I looked at my assistant, and I said, ‘All right, let’s go.’”
And go the Golden Hawks did, rallying for a double overtime 3-2 win over the favored Rams to earn a spot in the district semifinals.
“Depending on what she wants in her career, she’s absolutely going to be a coach,” Heim said. “She just has that mentality.
“I’m never at a loss for words, so for me to say, ‘Yup, let’s go’ with the season on the line – it’s just the type of kid she is.”
It’s pretty much the same story in basketball where Steve Polinsky took over the program this year, the team’s third coach in three years.
“It was very difficult,” Reckner said. “Not only with the coaches changing, but we definitely had some drama in past years that made it just difficult all around.”
It’s the sort of upheaval that is often the recipe for disaster, but it wasn’t, thanks in no small part to Reckner and a senior class blessed with leaders.
“I think the transition was really good because I had her as one of the seniors with the other girls,” Polinsky said. “You could tell she was really eager to go for her senior year.
“I wanted to change things with my culture, but I didn’t want to change everything to make it so overwhelming for them. I had a lot of talks with her about it, just trying to figure things out. She definitely stepped up as one of the big leaders of the team – she got it.”
And a squad anchored by Reckner and four other seniors, went on to capture the program’s first SOL title in 11 years, making the transition appear effortless.
“I feel like we kind of went into this year – me and the other seniors – there’s nothing to lose,” Reckner said. “It’s our last year, let’s make the most of it. Coach P’s a great guy, so that definitely made it a lot easier for us.”
The program’s turnaround is underscored by the fact that the Golden Hawks had an 18-game winning streak during the regular season.
“At first, we almost didn’t notice it,” Reckner said. “We were playing well, and one day, someone said – ‘Oh, you won eight games in a row.’ We’re like – ‘Oh wow, that’s great.’
“It just kept building, and obviously, pressure comes with a win streak, but it wasn’t our end all, be all. We knew when other teams saw that win streak – it puts an even bigger target on your back than you already had. We knew it would eventually come to an end. We’d rather lose now, work on things we need to work on and take that into districts with us. That’s what matters most.”
A two-sport standout
Reckner came by her love of sports honestly.
Her mother, Danielle, was a three-sport standout in high school and went on to play D1 field hockey at St. Joseph’s University, and her father, Drew, ran cross country at the University of Scranton.
Reckner got her first taste of organized sports when she began playing soccer around the age of four. Basketball followed shortly thereafter, and in fourth grade, she joined Heat Hoops on the AAU circuit. She grew up playing basketball with future high school teammates Lil Metrick and Kathryn O’Kane. (All three were on the varsity as freshmen, and all three are captains of this year’s squad.)
Through middle school, Reckner played both club soccer and AAU basketball but opted to focus on basketball when high school rolled around. That, however, has not prevented her from excelling in both.
A four-year varsity player in both soccer and basketball, Reckner began her high school career on the soccer pitch as a forward but was moved to center back.
“She’s an incredible athlete, and she’s deceivingly fast – she can run all day,” Heim said. “Honestly, she probably doesn’t touch a soccer ball except for soccer season, and I asked her to man mark girls going to Notre Dame, Northwestern, Penn State, and she has just risen to the task every single time. We were confident with just putting Fi on their best player, and the rest of the defense has to shift and make adjustments, and we knew we’d be in the game.
“I could rely on her for 80-plus minutes. What she was able to do on the field was incredible, but I think what is more impressive about her is she is just a natural born leader.”
A captain as a senior, Reckner went on to earn first team All-SOL honors.
“On the soccer field, when someone – for lack of a better term – is like a gnat on you and doesn’t give you space to breathe, that can get under your skin,” Heim said. “I don’t think she’s ever gone out and been like ‘I’m going to get under someone’s skin.’
“I think it’s just her work rate, and she does it so clean. In soccer, she never gets called for fouls because she does it clean. She’d rather beat you to the ball than allow you to have a chance. That gets in people’s heads.
“She’s very, very good at it, and she’s a smart kid so she sees the field well, she sees the court extremely well. She just knows where to be and how to use what she does best. In high school, that’s a massive
advantage when you consistently get after someone like that. The way she played and inspired the others around her to play the same way – it just worked really, really well for us.”
It was a similar scenario on the basketball court.
“She’s played the best girl on every team we’ve played basically,” Polinsky said. “When you’re a good player and you get both sides of the ball, you have to concentrate a lot more. She does her homework on the players, and she’s a really good leader.”
The Hawks’ coach goes on to recall Rock South’s 66-62 win over defending Delaware state champ Ursuline Academy when Reckner was given the unenviable task of defending one of nation’s best - sophomore Jezelle ‘GG’ Banks, a 5-star recruit.
Banks scored 13 points in a quarter and a half when she was whistled for her second technical and, as a result, was ejected from the game.
“Fi got her ejected, but it wasn’t any malice or anything like that,” Polinsky said. “She just got frustrated with how hard (Reckner plays).
“That showed me – my god, she will do anything to be successful. Fiona was being physical with her, and that was frustrating her big time.”
Ask Reckner what has stood out about her final high school season, and it’s not the wins or losses, but rather how well the team has come together.
“This year we have so many girls that are talented, and on any given day, anyone can have a good game,” she said. “We’ve gotten really good at focusing on the team.
“Even if you had a bad game but the team did well - it’s okay, we’re going to move on, and you’ll have a better game next game. I think just how well we were able to prioritize being a team has helped this year.”
A bright future
Just as Reckner excels in the athletic arena, she does the same in the classroom. She has a course load of honors and AP classes and is a member of the National Honor Society, the Math Honor Society, the English Honor Society and Rho Kappa (Social Studies) Honor Society.
“She takes care of it in the classroom,” Heim said. “Her teachers all say the same things about her – she’s just an all-around amazing kid.”
Reckner plans to major in business, organizations and society at Franklin & Marshall on the pre-law track with her sights on one day becoming an lawyer.
“It’s not like I have a certain role model or someone I always wanted to be like, but I’ve always thought it would be super cool to fight for somebody in court and to get justice for other people,” she said. “I’ve watched law shows, and I’ve talked to people that have done law. It just seems super interesting.”
Reckner is also a peer mentor at South, and outside of school, she is a youth ambassador for Bucks for Kids, which raise funds for children in foster care.
Although she is no longer eligible to play AAU, Reckner and four of her AAU teammates will be coaching a third grade team for the Heat.
And basketball will be very much a part of Reckner’s future. She committed to continue her career at F&M last October.
“I was talking to a bunch of schools just trying to decide – what distance, what level, all of that,” Reckner said. “I really had no idea what I wanted to do going into the whole college search.
“I talked Coach Bri (F&M head coach Brianna Spector) on the phone for the first time and I loved her. I went to see it for the first time last summer, and I really loved the campus. I got to meet the girls, and they were super nice. It’s an hour-and-a-half away from home. I like that it’s close where I can come home if I need to, and I have some family that lives close, which is also nice.”
According to Polinsky, F&M is inheriting a complete basketball player.
“What separates her is she does it on both sides of the ball – it’s not just about offense, it’s defense as well,” the Golden Hawks’ coach said. “She understands the whole picture and how important defense is to our team and what we do.
“Her leadership is as an example, and she’s just a great kid. I wish I could have coached these (seniors) for four years. I’ve been lucky.”
Heim, for one, believes Reckner also could have played soccer at the next level.
“She absolutely could have,” the Hawks’ coach said. “But I’m really, really excited that she’s going to keep playing basketball at the next level. She’s going to do great there. I don’t even know if that coach knows what type of engine she has.
“She’ll further improve the program because she just makes everyone around her better. She makes you want to work harder, she makes you want to be a leader, she makes you want to do the little things.
“It’s going to be very, very difficult to replace not just her play but, more importantly, her leadership and what she meant to the younger kids in the program. She’s an incredible kid, an incredible person. I could go on all day about how highly I think of Fiona Reckner. She’s fantastic.”
