Volleyball
Favorite athlete: Milan Gomillion
Favorite teams: Maryland Terrapins or Navy Women’s volleyball team
Favorite memory competing in sports: This year we started dressing up for JV games to cheer them on and to just have fun. I really wanted to show up in my hotdog costume, so I got my friend to dress as a “barbeque dad” to match. The refs and fans loved the hotdog costume, and I ended up being posted on the school Twitter.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: At volleyball camp, I was running around the gym to shag balls. I noticed one tucked away behind a stack of mats and, like a good teammate, went to go fetch it. The second I reached for that ball I felt a sting on the tip of my pointer finger and immediately dropped everything. A huge spider had laid her babies back there and was trying to protect them. To my coach’s dismay, I was not able to climb the walls the next day.
Music on playlist: “The Color Violet” by Tory Lanez or “Waves” by Kanye West will always get me pumped up. Sometimes my team plays non-warmup music for the other team while they warm up (such as bagpipe Christmas music), and one time I requested Phineas and Ferb songs. That also got me pumped up.
Future plans: Go to Cairn University and hopefully play volleyball (and maybe lacrosse). I would also love to study abroad in Italy during my time there!
Words to live by: “Be Kind” - super short but easier said than done
One goal before turning 30: To decorate my own house and see as many places as possible
One thing people don’t know about me: Sometimes I can sing opera really well. Only sometimes.
By Mary Jane Souder
Changing schools as a sophomore in high school is challenging.
Moving to another state and changing schools during the pandemic in 2020 with virtual learning the only option – well, that takes challenging to another level. But that’s exactly the situation Georgie Thorpe found herself in the fall of 2020 when her family moved to the area from Annapolis, Md.
The now William Tennent senior remembers her introduction to her new school.
“I had to do concussion testing, and I didn’t have a ChromeBook, so I had to bring my MacBook, and that didn’t work so I had to come back,” Thorpe said. “The first day of school came. It was online, and I didn’t have any of the Google links, and I just remember sitting in my room crying to my mom because I had no idea what was happening.
“I joined the Google Meets link that I had, and the teacher said I was an hour-and-a-half late. The only comfort I had was volleyball.”
Volleyball.
It helped save the day for Thorpe when her family made the move to Pennsylvania. And made the move from a small private school – Annapolis Area Christian School – to a large public school a much easier one.
“I remember my dad saying, ‘I’m in contact with the volleyball coach – do you want to go?’” Thorpe said. “I was like – ‘Sure.’
“The first time I came to the school was the last open gym (of the summer). That was the first time I met the team. I somehow was captain on jayvee that year. I loved it so much.”
Coach Brian Bassler recalls Thorpe’s arrival.
“Here’s a girl – her grandparents are in Maryland, her family is down there, and she is uprooted,” the Tennent volleyball coach said. “As a high school sophomore, you’re thinking – I left my friends behind.
“But it was like this girl was meant to be here. She instantly bonded with the entire group. She blended in right away. It was like she had been here since kindergarten. It was a really neat thing to see. I’m sure there were things we didn’t see, but it couldn’t have been a better fit.”
Volleyball was hardly a natural choice for Thorpe, whose mother is the head lacrosse coach at Cairn University.
“Maryland is so lacrosse-oriented,” Thorpe said. “My mom played for Maryland – she was on the team when they won a national championship.”
According to Bassler, Thorpe could well be the best lacrosse player at Tennent.
“That’s the neat part of her story,” the Panthers’ coach said. “She did play volleyball before she came, but I think it was secondary. I remember even thinking – is she going to play? They came and met with us. It was a big move. Her parents are going to work at a Christian university. Are they just feeling our school out or me out? It was always touch and go.
“Then she played that first year. I think volleyball took over her passion, and she focused more time and energy on volleyball.”
It became so much of a passion that Thorpe plans to continue her volleyball career at the collegiate level when she enrolls at Cairn University next fall.
“I just have this want to play,” she said. “I wake up and I’d be excited for volleyball, and in the spring, I’d be like – ‘Oh…I have lacrosse later.
“I would actually say I’m better at lacrosse. I was just really good at lacrosse, and I’m not as good at volleyball, but I just love it so much that I have to keep playing, so I did quit lacrosse. My mom is not super happy and she’s trying to recruit me back to her college team, but I’m playing volleyball.”
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When it came to sports, Thorpe – the oldest of four children – didn’t go the traditional route. She didn’t grow up playing community sports, waiting, instead, until she reached middle school to begin playing at a competitive level.
“My dad loved basketball – he played basketball and lacrosse,” she said. “He was pushing me to play basketball, I played for one year in seventh grade. I didn’t enjoy that enough to keep playing.”
Thorpe’s introduction to volleyball came when her mother coached the sport at the middle school level at Annapolis Area Christian School.
“My mom coached it because my dad was working at the school, they needed a volleyball coach, and my mom played,” she said. “I think that started when I was in fourth grade, so I would ride the bus to the middle school so that she could take me home, and I would watch their practices. For those two years, I was watching volleyball and I was watching my mom coach, I knew I wanted to play.”
And play she did, beginning with her middle school team in Annapolis and continuing through high school, most recently at William Tennent the past three years.
“I came to AACS in third grade and went all throughout freshman year with the same people,” said Thorpe. “We were already talking about moving when COVID hit, and it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. My parents both had an opportunity (at Cairn University).
“Then, all of a sudden, it’s summer, and my parents found a house (in Pennsylvania). It was just really quick.”
The family – which had lived in Lansdowne, Pa., prior to moving to Annapolis – moved back to Pennsylvania the end of July 2020, the summer prior to Thorpe’s sophomore year.
“I love change and fun stuff like this,” she said. “I was all about it.”
It was not all smooth sailing with virtual school limiting Thorpe’s social interaction, but she had her volleyball team, and it turns out that was enough.
“Through volleyball, I actually met my best friends,” she said. “It was a blessing to meet the people I did because obviously now I’m really close to the team. They were the only people I knew that first year. Because it was on-line school, the only hallway or place I knew (in the school) was the gym. I had been to a private school my entire life until sophomore year, so going to a ginormous public school – it was a change, but I loved it.”
Tennent students were finally back in the classroom at the end of February.
“And then we went to school half the week,” she said. “I only really knew my volleyball team.
“I got there, and everyone had masks on, and it’s still weird to look at my coach because I had to look at him for a year-and-a-half with a mask on.”
Life returned to something close to normal Thorpe’s junior year.
“It was really fun,” she said. “I liked seeing everyone without masks.”
A middle hitter/blocker for the volleyball team, Thorpe – who played club her sophomore and junior years - has blossomed into a major contributor.
“She did really well last year,” Bassler said. “We made the playoffs for the first time in four years or so, and she was a big part of that. Now this year, she hasn’t skipped a beat.
“She hardly ever makes any errors, she’s just one of those really consistent kids in the middle. She’s a good blocker, she doesn’t go up and try to do anything fancy. She can place the ball pretty much anywhere, but she keeps the ball in play and is just a real smart player.”
At 5-10, Thorpe was a natural to play at the net.
“I’m a middle, and that’s the known tall spot on the court,” the Panthers’ senior said, going on to explain what drew her to volleyball. “I really like adrenalin – I love roller coasters, I love drop towers, I love the adrenalin rush volleyball gives you.
“Lacrosse is a lot of running – and my mom makes fun of me for it, but I do hate running. Volleyball is just – it’s very quick, and I love how close everyone is because you get to high five. On the lacrosse field, you’re just running and hoping the ball is in your stick. It’s two very different sports.”
With the regular season winding down, the Panthers are poised to make a return trip to districts.
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Away from the volleyball court, Thorpe loves photography and enjoys singing – she used to participate in choir. She recently joined the National Art Honor Society.
“I love art, I love writing, I love English a lot, and I love music too,” she said.
When it comes to a major, Thorpe is still undecided.
“I really like marketing, business, psychology and English,” she said. “I also plan to minor in graphic design. Anything is possible.”
And, of course, she’ll play volleyball.
“I don’t know where on her timeline this switched over to volleyball because even up until this year, I said, ‘Hey, what are you doing next year for college – are you playing lacrosse or volleyball?’” Bassler said. “She looked at me kind of crazy and was like, ‘I want to go to Cairn and play volleyball. I’ve been talking to the coach.’ She definitely can do it.”
Although Thorpe’s volleyball journey began with the jayvee team, her impact on the program was immediate.
“One of the things is how she sacrifices,” Bassler said. “If you go up to her and say, ‘I need you on the outside or right side today,’ which luckily we haven’t had to do this year, she’s always willing to do that. She never wondered why she wasn’t on varsity if she was swinging (from jayvee to varsity).
“I think the biggest thing is she looks out for other players. I don’t want to call her a ‘mom,’ but she definitely is that sort of figure. You trust her. She’s like an extra coach. When we run our camps in the summer with the really younger girls, she’s always there taking girls under her wing, showing them the game, calming girls down. It’s really, really nice to see.”
To say volleyball has enriched Thorpe’s high school experience would be an understatement.
“Volleyball has meant so much,” she said. “It’s obviously given me my major friend group. I found my youth group, my church, my other friend groups through volleyball – everything since being here.
“I love the team spirit. We do this thing called Panther Moms, so a senior picks underclassmen, they bring gifts and at the end of the year they write speeches. Me and my friend had to write our senior a speech. That was definitely a highlight. Everyone cried, everyone hugged.”
Thorpe, according to her coach, is blessed with some special qualities.
“She’s just got that good heart in her, and it shines through,” Bassler said. “I think that’s why our girls – it was easy for them to click, but at that same time she came in and gave us some of that personality. We didn’t always have that top to bottom, and I think she’s really helped our culture, for sure. She is really going to be missed. She’s just an all-around amazing player, teammate and person.”
