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 for week of Feb. 18, 2020
Dave Giordano can’t help but look back and laugh. When asked about his favorite memories of being Rileigh Serroni’s coach, the Springfield Township head basketball coach spoke of an intensity so fierce that it resulted in multiple technical fouls early in his point guard’s junior season. He sat his point guard down for a chat in hopes of channeling that relentless energy, and soon enough Serroni had it under control. That, Giordano said, is just who Serroni is. A ferocious competitor and respected leader and captain, Serroni unapologetically wears her love of basketball on her sleeve like a badge of honor. “She’s the kind of player you wish you’d have five of out there, one who, despite the fact that our team struggled getting wins the last three seasons, was never one to not give 100 percent in order to achieve positive results,” Giordano said.
Serroni, a senior who also was a captain of Springfield’s soccer team, has a reputation as a winner, even if one of the smallest schools in Suburban One won very few games during her tenure. Yes, Springfield was often pitted against much larger schools with deeper wells of talent, but look beyond Serroni’s 1-13 senior soccer season or the consecutive 4-18 basketball campaigns the past two years and you’ll find someone who competes hard and is able to find success and positivity in everything she does. After talking to Serroni, it becomes crystal clear that she sees the bigger picture and approaches life with a perpetual glass-half-full mentality. “If someone’s head went down, I saw it as my responsibility to always pick them up,” she said. “I want to be a role model for others.” Sure, the losing wore on Serroni sometimes, particularly in private. She is human, after all; but she’d never project that on to her teammates and coaches, because it was her job to lead and a strong leader keeps morale high even when things are at their lowest.
For Dan Malora’s soccer team, Serroni started out as a defender, but not wanting to keep her in a box, Malora created a distinct position called “pace setter” for Serroni simply because he wanted her to be anywhere the ball was. “The biggest thing about Rileigh is the kind of worker she is,” Malora said. “She wasn’t our top scorer or assists leader, but she was voted a captain because of her incredible work ethic. It’s part of her character. She’s not an idle-time kind of girl, and it’s such an admirable quality. And she’s a level-headed motivator. Wins and losses don’t phase her, because she’s always out there working. It doesn’t matter how much we lost by, because it never bogged her down. She was always ready to get up and work again, which is so huge for a school district that deals with these lumps often.”
Serroni will attend Moravian College where she hopes to walk on to the basketball team. Away from the soccer field and basketball court, Serroni is a member of student council and participates in Interact, a club at Springfield that focuses on service and giving back to the community. At the end of the day, the experience of being a student-athlete at Springfield enriched, fulfilled and positively changed Serroni’s life. The fact that Serroni’s teams didn’t win many games is irrelevant, especially considering her teammates always enthusiastically followed her into every single battle. “Being an athlete here has taught me that you can still succeed, even if your record doesn’t show it,” Serroni said. “When you push yourself to do well at Springfield, everybody notices. Getting a ‘great game last night’ from somebody in the hallway, that means so much. People know and recognize you here, and they aren’t afraid to congratulate you. That’s what I’m going to miss the most.”
To read Serroni’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/rileigh-serroni-0089869
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Feb.18, 2020
Connor Pleibel, a two-sport athlete, has an interesting perspective. “High school sports is the high school experience, for me at least,” the Pennridge senior said. “That’s what I base everything around. The academics is an important part, but I’m always thinking about how I’m going to do at practice after school or how that game’s going to go this week.” If it sounds as though academics might take a backseat, guess again. Pleibel excels in the classroom and was named the scholar-athlete for the football team last fall and also for his basketball team this winter. “High school sports is a big commitment, especially with the time piece because you’re going to school for seven hours and then you have a three-hour practice after school,” he said. “Handling both isn’t easy, but I’ve tried to stick to it as much as I can and keep working hard. The grades just come with it. It’s all about putting in the work.”
Pleibel has put in the work, and he’s found the perfect mix of academics and athletics. His coaches in both sports are eager to talk about him. “He’s very coachable, a great teammate, great with his peers, great with his teachers, excellent student,” Pennridge basketball coach Dean Behrens said. “You can’t not like Connor, I’ll tell you that. All the teachers like him, everyone likes Connor.” Added Pennridge football coach Cody Muller, “Connor is overall a great kid character-wise as well as athletically. He was a captain for us this year, a true lead-by-example kid. You never had to worry about what he was doing because it was always the right thing. He’s a very coachable kid, a guy that you like to build a team around.”
Pleibel was a two-year starter for the football team and a captain as a senior. His journey on the basketball court was a little different. “I remember he didn’t get a lot of minutes as a sophomore, he wasn’t on the varsity bench,” Behrens said. “Last year he got a lot of minutes on jayvee. He was on the varsity bench but wasn’t a guy we got in too much. He never complained, he comes to practice every day and works hard. It shows what kind of kid he is.” Pleibel was coming back from a broken leg his sophomore season, and playing jayvee as a junior - it never fazed him. “It was understandable because of the strength of our team,” Pleibel said. “I love the sport, so I wasn’t just going to give up on it because of one little thing. I was going to keep going through. My goal was to play my senior year and I proved myself.” Pleibel was inserted into the starting lineup after the Christmas break, and he has never left. “We put him in the starting lineup against CB South, the first game back from the break, and he gave us a little shot in the arm offensively,” Behrens said. “He’s just been a steady guy.”
For the past two years, Pleibel was a starter at wide receiver for the football team. “He’s a very smart kid, and that translates on the field and on the court,” Muller said. “He picks up on things very quickly, he has a high IQ. He was a return man for us as well. He was very sure-handed. He was just an overall good kid and good football player.” Muller credited his tri-captains – Pleibel, Joe Muntz and Shane Hartzell – for providing positive leadership during a 3-8 season this past fall.
An excellent student, Pleibel, who takes two AP courses, is a member of the National Honor Society. Next fall, he plans to major in engineering, focusing on either civil or mechanical engineering. He is deciding between Temple, Penn State and Delaware and will not play collegiate sports, but he plans to stay involved in sports in some way. Although he wasn’t a headliner, the Pennridge senior has been an important contributor on two major sports teams, including a basketball team that is bound for the state tournament.
To read Pleibel’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/connor-pleibel-0089882
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