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 Oct. 19, 2020
Mike Moyer vividly remembers the first time Keely McGlone caught his eye on the soccer pitch. The then slight-of-build rising Central Bucks West sophomore was playing in a summer league game at Quakertown. “I just remember there was a corner kick, she was on the back post and the ball came across, and she blocked it from going in by jumping up and having it hit her on the side of the face – this was in a summer league games that means nothing,” Moyer said. “I remember turning to my assistant and saying, ‘Who was that?’ So the next couple practices and summer league games I kept my eye on Keely. She was a really, really smart player. She didn’t have all the tools, but she could play, and she would run through a wall for anyone on her team. By the time the season started, she was the starting center back, and she hasn’t missed a game back there since.”
These days, McGlone – the MVP of her West team as a junior - is the captain of West squad that is off to an impressive start. A respected leader and standout player, McGlone endured some growing pains her rookie season. One game, in particular, was a defining moment in the career of the now CB West senior. “I remember every detail,” McGlone said. “This was the year Souderton won the state championship and they were a very talented team. It was a goalie punt, and I totally misjudged the ball. I thought it was not going to bounce when it did, I thought it was going to be in the air a little bit longer, so I didn’t go to it really. It bounced, and I wasn’t expecting it, and I was just sort of standing there flatfooted like a deer in the headlights, and it went straight over my head. Souderton had a really fast forward who just came in, took it and scored. Before the ball even hit the back of the net, Mike had a girl at the 50 ready to sub me out. I got off the field, and I’ve never heard someone scream so much. He was so annoyed with me. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. He was completely right – it was a terrible play. I felt so guilty because it was such a simple play, and I was just being sort of careless. If I had tried my hardest on that one play, the game could have turned out differently.”
It’s a story that could have gone in many directions. McGlone could have directed her frustration at her coach, and it could have negatively affected her play. That didn’t happen. As a matter of fact, the exact opposite did. “When people are hard on me, that makes me want to try harder because I know I’m not performing to my full potential,” McGlone said. “The way I see it – people are hard on you because they know you can do better, and you have so much more to offer.” That response tells you all anyone ever has to know about Keely McGlone. It certainly told her coach everything he needed to know about his sophomore center back. “I completely killed Kelly in front of the team, and the next game she comes back and plays lights out and was one of the reasons we beat Pennridge that year,” Moyer said. “That’s when I knew I had a special player. It shows the kind of character she has. I converse with her before every single game about the starting lineup, about what she likes and what she thinks. I always tell her this isn’t my team – it’s our team. She is like having a coach on the field – that’s how much I trust her.”
Collegiate soccer – whether varsity or club – will be part of McGlone’s future. She is considering Notre Dame, Michigan, Boston University, Northeastern and Pitt and will major in either math or engineering. She has not ruled out the possibility of attending a smaller school if it would be the right fit. McGlone is a high achiever off the soccer field as well. With a course load that included four AP classes last year and four more this year, the West senior boasts an impressive 4.3 GPA. Even more impressive is her 1520 score on the SATs. She is a member of the National Honor Society and has volunteered in the community with NHS. “She’s a priceless kid,” Moyer said. “The worst part of being a high school coach – you only get to spend four years with these kids. After this year, I’m never going to coach Keely again, and it breaks my heart because I wish I had 11 Keelys on my team all the time.”
To read McGlone’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/keely-mcglone-0091842
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Oct. 19, 2020
One look at Souderton senior Kristian Stanczewski - standing at 6-3 tall and with a wingspan of 6-9 - and the natural first impression would be that he must be a basketball player. Instead, he takes that near-freakish physical attribute into the natatorium as a scoring machine for the water polo team. But, he does so while inspired by the work ethic of a basketball icon, the late great Kobe Bryant. “I just like how he worked super hard and was loyal to his team,” said Stanczewksi, who did the mandatory tee-ball stint and played soccer through middle school before being exclusively “in the water” at the high school level. “I just liked his work ethic. I heard this story where another basketball player walked into the gym and Kobe Bryant was already there, working out. Three hours later, the other guy was leaving. When (Bryant) was asked why he was still there, he just said something like, ‘to show you that you have to keep working harder.’ That’s what I strive to be as well – to be the best that I can and to work as hard as I can.”
A native of Livingston, N.J., Stanczewski took to the water like, well, the proverbial fish to water. “I started out swimming,” he said. “That was when I lived in New Jersey. Then water polo got big. We moved to Pennsylvania. My dad played club in college, and he loved the sport. When I was 8, I started playing (organized) water polo.” And it was love at first splash. “I definitely knew right away,” he said. “I loved the game – every aspect of it.” For Souderton water polo coach Joe Hay, a transplanted West Virginian who jokes that he was “drafted” into coaching the team before he really understood the nuances of the sport, having the chance to coach a complete-package athlete like Stanczewski equates to waking up in the morning and finding a chunk of gold under your pillow. “He’s a super intelligent kid,” said Hay, who currently has Stanczewski in one of his AP math classes. “It translates into his game. He is fundamentally sound. He is big, strong and very athletic. On top of that, he goes the extra mile. He knows the fundamentals and executes them. He has a bit of swagger, but yet he isn’t cocky. He is confident, but still relaxed. If you had a team of all Kristians, you wouldn’t have to do much.”
If anything matched Stanczewski’s love for water polo at a young age, it was playing with LEGO toys. It was a passion that quickly morphed into a career aspiration of being an orthopedic surgeon with a focus on prosthetics. “I had it narrowed down since I was really young, since like first grade,” he recalled. “I always liked playing with LEGOs. I played with them all the time. I just liked seeing how stuff works. It was just a matter of the medical side or the engineering side. I decided on medical so that I could interact with people.” Once Pennsylvania went into the Yellow Phase of the pandemic shutdown, Stanczewski saw green and began inviting school teammates – and club teammates from his Bux-Mont squad – to his home pool for workouts. This came after Stanczewski scratched his lifelong itch to tinker by building his own regulation size water polo goal and putting it to use. “I started having people come over, and we just practiced – people from my school team and anyone from my club team who lived close enough," he said. "I was just trying to help everyone improve under these conditions, since no one was able to practice at their schools.”
Academics have never been an issue for Stanczewski, who takes mostly AP classes and maintains a weighted GPA in the range of 4.3. He plans to major in pre-med at Wagner where he will continue his water polo career. “I feel like I really had a good connection with the coach,” said Stanczewski. “And, they seemed to have a really strong team dynamic. I liked that about it, and I also liked the school in general. I was looking for a smaller school, so that I could focus on my schoolwork as well. They had a couple of spots open, so I was fortunate enough to get one. I’m looking forward to it. I’m just ready for the next level of competition. It’s going to be such a new challenge” One thing is for sure, Wagner’s coaching staff will be getting a coachable player. “He was coachable as a freshman,” affirmed Hay. “And he improved by leaps and bounds every year since then.”
To read Stanczewki’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/kristian-stanczewski-0091843
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