Thanks to our continued partnership with Univest Financial, SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes 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.
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Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of June 4, 2025)
Roll back the calendar three years. Sierra Klein, by her own admission, was an intimidated freshman on a veteran softball team at Council Rock North. “I think there were three freshmen on the team, and everybody else was already a team,” Klein said. “They played together for a year, so it was very intimidating.” That intimidated young freshman made an immediate impact, earning a spot in the starting lineup at a new position – second base. Fast forward to this year, Klein again found herself in a unique position. This time as the lone senior on a young Rock North squad. And when the team’s successful season – which included the program’s first league championship in 20 years - came to an end in the second round of the District 1 6A Tournament, the influence of Klein, according to her coach, was underscored.
“Everybody was obviously very upset after the game,” Rock North coach Susan Yee said. “A couple of our junior leaders stayed fairly late to talk to us (coaches) after the game. We said, ‘You know, it sucks. We get it, and we’re all upset. I’m going to go home and cry into my pillow tonight, but we still have next year. We have the whole team back minus one kid. We’re losing one player off the entire roster. We can do something next year. Look what you guys did this year.’ One of the juniors looked at us and said, ‘No, this year was our year,’ and for her to say that with the only difference between this year and next year is Sierra, that’s the
level of impact she thinks Sierra has, and I think that really spoke volumes to me when she made that comment.”
A four-year starter, Klein was a rare three-year captain. As a senior, she anchored the infield at third base and was the team’s cleanup batter. “Everything she does – she has a quiet way of doing it, but when you look at the impact, it’s a loud impact,” Yee said. “This year she led the team in RBIs, she led the team in extra base hits, but she didn’t come up to the plate and people would go, ‘Oh my God, you can’t pitch to this kid.’ She’s not going to hit 10 home runs a season, but if you make a mistake, she’ll put it out. She’s just going to do the job and never question what or why. She’s one of those kids that – if you’re not part of the team, you don’t realize the impact she has.”
An excellent student Klein is a member of the National Honor Society as well as the social studies, Spanish and business honor societies. As a result, she is very active in community service. Klein is also a Rock Ambassador, one of a select group chosen to integrate incoming students into school life. “I’m also very involved with my Jewish youth group, and I’ve been part of the board for four years,” said Klein, whose family moved to Newtown when she was three years old. “I attended the Early Learning Center of my Synagogue until first grade, so I was surrounded by the Jewish environment from a young age. I love being connected to my Jewish identity, and those friends I’ve grown up with are still my best friends today, so that was a huge part of my life.”
Klein is looking forward to being actively involved in the University of Florida Hillel She leaves Rock North with many fond memories of her involvement in sports, which included playing volleyball as a freshman and sophomore – varsity as a sophomore. “It’s given me a bigger community, getting to meet people outside my grade,” Klein said. “Getting to see every single grade on the team is really fun and just having a different community aside from my close-knit friends is a lot of fun.”For Yee, it won’t be quite the same without the three-year captain, who was the only sophomore captain she’s ever had.“When Sierra was a sophomore, we had already assumed that the two juniors were going to end up being captains, and when we were reading all of the nominations, we were like – we have to have three captains,” the Rock North coach said. “She was only a sophomore, but these younger kids are telling us they’re looking up to her. She’s very organized in terms of making sure everybody’s on the same page and knows what’s going on. She’s very, very like I’m not going to expect anything out of somebody else that I don’t expect out of myself. She's just an all-around great kid who will really be missed next year.”
To read Klein’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/sierra-klein-00119159
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of June 4, 2025)
There are those who are born on third base and think they hit a triple. That is not what Council Rock South senior Ryan Hickey - whose road to the hot corner was strewn with obstacles - is all about. However, the final destination – a senior season to remember with his longtime comrades – was worth it all. “He had to work his way up through the ranks,” said CR South coach Greg Paprocki. “He wasn’t one of those kids that played right away as an underclassman. He had to wait for his time. When his number was called, he was more than ready.” Hickey, who battled various injuries throughout his career with the Golden Hawks, became an everyday player on Paprocki’s lineup card as the starting third baseman and generally hitting anywhere from to fifth to seventh. Although he had to wear a sleeve to protect his bad knee, the season was relatively free of injury.
What Hickey will take away from his senior season was that the Golden Hawks got to the district playoffs for the first time this decade and won a game (over Great Valley) before falling to North Penn in the second
round. “It was the first time we won a playoff game since 2017,” said Hickey. Since the final out of the North Penn loss, Hickey has had time to reflect on the pros and cons. “It’s bittersweet,” said Hickey, who is moving on to the University of West Virginia honors college to major in accounting and is likely done with athletic competition above the intramural level.
It is with many of the same teammates that Hickey experienced winning the state legion title in 2021. “All those kids are kids I played with for a lot of years,” he said. “To be able to do it with them was just amazing.” While a seamless transition to CR South would have been ideal, that was not in the cards. “It was definitely tough,” said Hickey. “The last couple of years, I’ve dealt with some injuries.” Those injuries included a partial tear in his elbow, a season-ending concussion, a sprained ankle and knee issues.
Nonetheless, he never considered taking his bat and ball and going home. “I didn’t ever really question myself,” said Hickey. “I always knew I wanted to make it back, but the injuries made it hard.” As a primary result of injuries, the only tangible playing time he received was as a relief pitcher as a junior before nailing down the third base job as a senior. When it came down to doing the work needed, that was never an issue for Hickey, who gave up soccer and basketball to focus just on baseball once in high school. “Ryan is just about as hard of a worker as I have ever been around – not only as a coach, but also as a player,” Paprocki said. “His drive and consistency, on a day-to-day basis, is so impressive. He is also a super respectful kid, and he is incredibly coachable.”
Rounding out the “complete package” is Hickey as a student in the classroom and a citizen around the school’s hallways. The Rock South senior, who has challenged himself with AP and honors classes and boasts a well-earned 4.3 GPA, is a member of several honors societies. When it came to choosing a school, it came down to two schools. While Hickey had nothing against Tennessee, the visit and tour at West Virginia made the decision an easy one. “It was a place that I could definitely see myself at for the next four years,” said Hickey. He plans to follow the trail blazed by some older cousins and major in accounting. “I always thought it would be something I might be good at,” said Hickey. “I was always pretty good at math.”
To his coach, the number that matters most was 110 – as in the effort Hickey always put forth. “He is a kid who does everything the right way,” said Paprocki. “He never missed an offseason workout, which is something that we value a ton. In this day and age, kids have a lot of options. They have personal trainers. They have travel teams. But Ryan was there for every single workout, every single day. He always gave us 110 percent effort. He is just the epitome of what you look for in a teammate.” And, although he may have only been a one-year starter, this will be the lasting legacy of Ryan Hickey. “I always tell these guys that, if you give 110 percent every single day, you are not going to have any regrets,” said Paprocki. “Ryan did that for sure. I would think that Ryan is not going to leave here with many regrets, just because of the effort he put in and how much pride he took. That’s in the classroom, the offseason workouts and all the way up and onto the baseball field.”
To read Hickey’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/ryan-hickey-00119160
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