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 March 16, 2016)
Diving can be a lonely sport. Kylene Gillick knows this all too well. When she was a sophomore, Gillick was one of just two female divers at Central Bucks East. As a junior, she was alone on the boards. In practice, the swimmers and divers are each focused on their respective routines, usually in different pools. The situation at East is even more extreme. The divers don’t practice at the home pool. Instead, they travel to Central Bucks South and practice in the Titans’ diving pool. Those factors are a large part of why Gillick was so surprised to be voted a captain of the girls’ swimming team her senior season. And they are the driving force behind Gillick’s primary goal as a leader – to make sure every member of the squad, whether swimmer or diver, came together as a team to support one another and to make the team a family.
Patriots’ coach Tom Kane acknowledged that the unique practice situation can make it difficult for swimmers and divers to come together. But he said the fact that the team voted Gillick as a tri-captain speaks volumes about what she brings to the table. “How can you be captain of a team when you’re practicing in a different pool? Ky found ways,” Kane said. “She was in charge of our bulletin board at the pool. She spearheaded the effort to get an earlier van to get the divers to practice earlier. She was determined to make sure the divers on the squad participated in the whole dynamics of a swimming meet. A lot of times, divers consider themselves separate – which diving is – but Ky made sure everyone understood diving was one event out of 12 and we’re all part of this together. She and Erin Lengel and Kirsten Mortimer have been such good captains and leaders.”
Originally a swimmer before she took up diving in sixth grade, Gillick gets back to her roots by swimming in a freestyle relay at least once a season, but it’s her contributions on the board that have made this such a successful season. “We had an 11-1 record this year,” Kane said. “Ky would either win the diving event, or if she didn’t take first, she took second and got us a lot of points.” Gillick, who finished 12th out of 47 divers at the District One meet, will head to the University of North Carolina Wilmington next year where she will dive for the Seahawks as she pursues a degree in physical oceanography. “We’re really going to miss Ky,” Kane said. “We know what we’re losing, but we know UNC Wilmington is getting a tremendous student who is organized, disciplined, outgoing, someone who wants to support her teammates, who loves being part of a team and who will do whatever it takes to help the team.”
To read Gillick’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/kylene-gillick-0068593
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of March 16, 2016)
When Matt Cartwright talks about his high school basketball experience, there are no ‘what ifs.’ Although there certainly could have been. His, however, is a story with a happy ending, but unbeknownst to the Souderton senior, his basketball career almost ended before it began. “His freshman year he was probably the last point guard on our depth chart,” said Souderton coach Tim Brown, who was the junior varsity coach back then. “We actually thought of cutting him between his freshman and sophomore years.” But Cartwright wasn’t cut, and his success story is a tribute to a relentless work ethic that impressed Brown from the outset. “He was always the open gym workhorse,” the Indian’s first-year coach said. “He was always the guy that was at everything, and it paid off for him. He got so much better. His senior year I couldn’t take him off the court. His four-year progression is pretty ridiculous.”
Cartwright was a key piece of the building blocks Brown is putting in place to create a new culture at Souderton. “His leadership was definitely the biggest thing he brought,” Brown said. “To know what he was going through every day and the way he would come in and work and how serious he was about it – you could tell he really used basketball as his outlet, and he put all his energy and passion into it every day.” Cartwright lost his father, Ralph, to brain cancer when he was two years old. “I don’t remember anything about it,” he said “My mom (Phyllis Cartwright) was diagnosed with breast cancer the same year I lost my father. She went into remission for 11 years, but it came back. It wasn’t that intense until a year-and-a-half ago when she started chemo. It came back in her bones and liver.”
Cartwright’s college choices are based on their proximity to home. “I’m waiting to see a little bit of what happens to my mom because that’s a big factor,” he said. “(My mother) is the person that made me who I am today. She’s the person who made me have the work ethic and all that stuff. It’s all her. She was a single parent raising three kids, battling cancer, beating cancer once and supporting a family. Still making us have a really great childhood. I wouldn’t even know I was missing something without having a father. It really was like that. I feel like having one mom I was never missing anything. She just made everything great. I saw her just grinding away at life, and I guess I just picked that up from her.”
Cartwright, who has been accepted at East Stroudsburg and is waiting to hear from West Chester, is uncertain of a major but leaning toward psychology or education.
To read Cartwright’s compete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/matt-cartwright-0068607
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