Thanks to our continued partnership with Univest Financial, SuburbanOneSports.com is once again recognizing a male and female featured athlete each week. The recognition is given to seniors of high character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams or who have overcome adversity. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
.jpg)
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of Jan. 29, 2025)
Emma Lankin has a passion for field hockey. The North Penn senior would be the first to admit she isn’t the most talented player on the team. And Lankin will not be going on to play at the next level. Field hockey is just one of many activities the senior is involved in and really could be nothing more than an asterisk to her busy life. But when her field hockey career came to an end with North Penn’s loss to state powerhouse Villa Maria Academy in the District 1 3A Tournament, the postgame scene suggests hockey was a whole lot more than that. “We lost by 14-0 or something (actually 10-0), and we were all in a circle crying,” Lankin said. The tears had nothing to do with the lopsided loss. “It was really sad - it was me and most of the other seniors last time playing a field hockey game because we won’t be playing in college,” Lankin said. “I remember all the seniors had their moment to speak, and I was literally blabbering between crying and trying to form a sentence. I was like – ‘I’m so grateful that I didn’t decide to quit playing field hockey. This is just the best
experience of my life, and thank you coaches for supporting me throughout.’”
Making those words especially powerful is the fact that Lankin twice reached a crossroads and seriously considered walking away from field hockey. In truth, no one would have blamed her if she had. A newcomer to the sport in eighth grade, Lankin was cut when she went out for the high school team a year later. Most players who are cut, according to coach Shannon McCracken, never come back. “She played club hockey and got better,” the Knights’ coach said. “It just speaks about who she is. She’s determined, and she also understands that her skills weren’t where they needed to be. A lot of kids will shy away from a ‘no’ or view it as a failure, but she viewed it as growth. It’s a moment – ‘I can get better, I can grow, I can use this to mature as an individual rather than it’s a no, and I’m not going to do it.’”
As a sophomore, Lankin was on junior varsity, and the summer prior to her junior year was overwhelmed with the thought of a more difficult class load with the college application process looming on the horizon. “(Hockey) was honestly stressing me out at the time more than it was bringing me joy, but I just didn’t want to quit, and I didn’t know what to do because I was on the brink,” she said. “I needed guidance, so I went to coach McCracken.” After a conversation with her coach, she opted to stick with hockey, a decision she has never regretted.
For most of her life, Lankin has been involved in dance, and she is still part of a dance team that performs at professional sporting events among other things. Playing two sports (lacrosse in the spring) along with a heavy course load might be more than enough for most, but Lankin – who has her sights set on a career in nursing - she took classes at Living Branches the summer prior to her senior year and became a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) and is now part of the pool shift there. If she
needed more to do in her spare time, Lankin – who works weekends at Well Fed in Skippack - is involved in numerous extra-curricular activities. She is a member of National Honor Society, she is part of Key Club and this year was part of Link Crew. She also is involved in Special Olympics and is co-president of the Italian Club. She was part of the school’s ski and snowboard club until this year.
Although Lankin’s field hockey days are behind her, she will not be forgotten by her coach. “We had some injuries this year, so she was at times in a starting role, and then if the player was healthy and able to come back, then she was back in the sub role,” McCracken said. “She was the type of kid – what can I do to help the team? And you just love those kids because you can count of them. She was always ready to go on the sidelines. She was cheering on her teammates and invested in the game – just a very selfless kid. You can have all the talent in the world, but she’s a kid I’m going to really remember and I’m going to be proud of because that’s what it’s all about. It’s high school, and, yes, you want to win, but the fact that you can bring a kid along that maybe doesn’t have the talent of some but has the character and they can contribute and they can walk away a better person – that’s a win.”
To read Lankin’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/emma-lankin-00116886
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Jan. 29, 2025)
According to the general consensus, most people can remember bits and pieces of their lives from as early as the ages of 3 to 4. Clearly, Central Bucks South senior Brett Barrett is not most people. The standout two-sport athlete and stellar student has more like the memory of an elephant. Exhibit A: He was not yet the age of 4 in 2008 when he could rattle off the lineup of the Philadelphia Phillies that won the World Series. “You have guys like Roy Halladay, who is still one of my all-time favorite pitchers ever,” said Barrett, a diehard fan of all Philadelphia pro teams who was at the NFC championship game to cheer on the Eagles. “You have guys who are still on social media today, like Carlos Ruiz and Ryan Howard and Chase Utley and guys like that. For me, it’s about my childhood. They will always be that team for me.”
Exhibit B: On a more personal level, Barrett remembers taking his first steps right on the Warrington campus of Central Bucks South, which was established in 2004. “My mom (Taryn Barrett) is the guidance counselor at CB South,” said Barrett. “I was always there. It is crazy to think that my high school has been in my life for so long. For some kids, it is only three or four years. For me, it been forever. It’s going to be really sad to see my high school career come to an end. I know it has to be, though. It’s not just for me, but for everyone else. I love my school.”
If a high school coach could go into a laboratory and produce the ideal player, it would likely be Brett Barrett. CB South basketball coach Louie Ditri and baseball coach Kevin Bray can both attest to that. “He is a high character guy,” said Bray. “That’s something that we look for with all of the kids in our program. He showed that very early. “He was a varsity sophomore for us, and he pitched really well, so he was able to get his feet wet at the varsity level. That has helped his development, both on the basketball court and the baseball field.” For the basketball team, Barrett serves as a captain, and he earned his stripes by leading offseason workouts and helping to change the culture. “He leads by example,” said Ditri, now in his third season as head coach after 18 as an assistant. “He’ll say a few words, but he mostly leads by his actions. He works his tail off. The other kids see it. They see that, if he is going to work his tail off at both ends of the court, they are going
to follow suit.”
While baseball may have come easier to Barrett as it is in his DNA (his father, Richie, was drafted out of Ursinus and played in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization), he has worked hard to make himself into a strong basketball player. The Titans have enjoyed a turnaround season in 2024-25 that included a school-record 15-game winning streak, and Barrett has been right in the thick of the about-face. “He has been one of our top performers,” said Ditri. “He is a baseball player, too. He is juggling baseball with it, too, which is impressive.”
Barrett will continue his baseball career at Ursinus, which seemed like the natural choice, especially since he would likely have the chance to pitch and be a position player for head coach Kyle Lindsay. He acknowledges he would love to add to his resume “professional athlete,” even if it is for the proverbial cup of coffee in the minors or independent ball, following the footsteps of his father, who played for the Arizona Diamondbacks for 2-3 years and then ended up playing independent baseball for the Camden Riversharks for another three years. “Any opportunity at all, I’d take,” he said. “It would be an experience, if it did work out, to say that I tried it. It worked out for my dad a little bit. He went to Ursinus. Some people didn’t think he would get drafted out of Division III school, but his development over four years at Ursinus was tremendous.”
First and foremost, though, Barrett will be in Collegeville to continue his education. He was able to put himself on the radar for a school with the academic reputation of Ursinus with diligence in the classroom. An excellent student who boasts a 4.2 GPA, he is the secretary of the National Honor Society. He plans to major in political science.
To read Barrett’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/brett-barrett-00116882
- Log in to post comments
