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 March 17, 2022.
It’s been overused and become something of a cliché. This concept in sports that players are a ‘coach’ on the court or field. In the case of Kaitlyn Flanagan, it’s anything but cliché. It’s a reality. Listening to her coaches tell it, the Plymouth Whitemarsh senior has already done her share of coaching – albeit unofficially - in both soccer and basketball. PW soccer coach TJ DeLucia recounts a conversation he had last fall with Dr. Jason Bacani, principal at PW. Keep in mind Flanagan – voted a captain by her teammates - was sidelined with an injury and didn’t play a minute of soccer last season. “Our principal is a big-time supporter of our athletes and came to a bunch of games, and he grabbed me in the cafeteria one day and said, ‘You’re always going up to Flanagan during games. What are you talking about with her?’” recalled DeLucia. “I said, ‘I trust her eye on defense during games more than mine. I want to know what she’s seeing, or I’m sending her to go talk to a kid who we just pulled because I know how much respect that player had for her, so instead of me going over to this sophomore defender who has never played in a varsity game before – let Flanagan go talk to the kid, and I know it’s going to have a great effect.’”
DeLucia, an assistant for PW’s varsity basketball team, also has had a front row seat to watch Flanagan on the basketball court where she is a four-year starter at point guard. “Her basketball IQ is absurd,” DeLucia said. “If I’m still doing this in four years and if she has a day job where she can get out at three o’clock, she needs to be a coach. Her basketball IQ is on a different level.” And apparently impossible to miss. “When she was in eighth grade, the thing that jumped out for such a young player was her basketball IQ and not just basketball IQ but how quickly she picked things up,” PW coach Dan Dougherty said. “When you have a point guard, that’s what you want. You want a coach on the floor Even as a freshman, she just immediately picked up the system that we run, not only knew what she was supposed to do but what everybody else was supposed to do, so her basketball IQ is through the roof.”
Flanagan is the undeniable engine on a PW squad that is just one win away from capturing the PIAA 6A state title, and there is simply no overstating her value to her team. “If she’s not a first team all-state kid, I don’t know who’s beating her out,” Dougherty said after PW’s recent state semifinal win over Cedar Cliff. “She just dominates the game as a point guard. You want to overplay her, (she’ll) dish to Lainey (Allen), she’ll dish to Erin (Daley). It’s fun to watch.” Not only were the Colonials without senior and four-year varsity starter Jordyn Thomas in their win over Cedar Cliff, both Erin Daley and Lainey Allen were saddled with foul trouble. While Flanagan’s points are always secondary to the senior captain’s leadership on the court, the Colonials needed her to score that night. She finished with 15 points – seven in the final two minutes to seal the win. “What you need in a game like (that) – it gets loud out there, and you need a coach on the floor,” Dougherty said. “She knows what everyone is supposed to do. She tells everyone what to do, and it won us the game in the second half.” It was vintage Kaitlyn Flanagan.
Flanagan also excels in the classroom and is part of the first class in the school’s new IB (International Baccalaureate) program, the equivalent of an AP college prep program for the top students. Early in her junior year, she committed to continue her basketball and academic career at the College of the Holy Cross. Flanagan is vice president of her senior class, and she is also part of the UNICEF Club, which raises money for needy children around the world and right now is donating funds to children in the Ukraine. Flanagan’s high school basketball career has come down to its final game, and it’s a safe bet that even adding a state title to her resume won’t change what Flanagan will treasure most about her PW basketball experience. “The relationships I have with my teammates – 100 percent,” she said. “It sounds – not necessarily cheesy, but the people are what make it, 100 percent. Obviously, we’re going to remember games and plays, but it’s the people. I’m going to remember the relationship I had with my coaches and my teammates on and off the court. The support we have for each other – that kind of stuff really is what makes it.”
To read Flanagan’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/kaitlyn-flanagan-0099378
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of March 17, 2022.
If Central Bucks East’s athletic personnel were a crossword puzzle, a sample clue might look like this: 11 Across, 10 letters: Plays basketball, baseball; Humble, mature, hard worker, soft-spoken but respected leader, always willing to do things the right way. Give up? As it turns out, the answer is pretty straightforward if you’re a member of the Patriots’ athletic family: Unquestionably, it’s Brett Young.
Young, a senior guard and pitcher/outfielder for East’s basketball and baseball teams, respectively, is known primarily at the school as a two-sport athlete. He has become an integral member of three straight postseason teams at East, with eyes on a fourth in the upcoming baseball season. Young also is an avid golfer and video game player, fairly standard interests for a kid his age, but it’s another of his interests that surprises, that is until you spend some time talking to him and understand it’s actually the perfect outlet for a quiet, mature, and cerebral thinker who also happens to be a fierce competitor. Brett Young, a teenager in 2022, loves…crossword puzzles. “Every single day I get one through an app on my phone,” Young said between laughs. “I really enjoy the challenge, and I’ve always loved puzzles. I like being able to solve and deduce my way through them until I find the right answer.”
It turns out this hobby is fitting, as Young has had to deduce and navigate his way through a handful of unforeseen challenges in his time at East: a nagging inner feeling that was telling him he never loved basketball to begin with; a global pandemic that shortened his junior basketball season while wiping out his sophomore baseball counterpart entirely; and a stress fracture in his back that stopped short a promising junior baseball campaign. It’s been a lot to balance, but at the end of the day, Young has stayed the same Brett he’s always been, which is a big reason why coaches and teammates alike gravitate toward him and the example he sets through his actions.
“His shooting is what shows up in articles, but it’s the intangibles that set Brett apart,” East head basketball coach Erik Henrysen said. “Great teammate, unselfish leader. Always willing to guard guys bigger and stronger than him. Whenever an opportunity or big moment presents itself where we need someone to step in, he has always been that guy. His best attribute is he’s able to do everything, so he leads by example.”
“Quiet, but confident,” echoed head baseball coach Kyle Dennis. “He has high expectations of himself and always knows what he’s supposed to do and where he’s supposed to be. He knows the practice plan, which sounds simple, but that shows he knows what is expected of him. Brett never wastes time standing or screwing around, because he’d rather be putting in extra work to make himself better.”
Being around an upstanding young man who was always prepared to work hard was good for Henrysen, too. Because of how close the team was off the court, they were inherently easy to coach. “Brett has done such a phenomenal job of representing the program at all times, and not just when he’s in the gym,” Henrysen said. “He leads by example and demonstrates to everyone he comes into contact with how important it is to be aware and conscious that others are looking at you as a representative of your school. He’s done it last year and this year, and it’s really raised the bar, which is something I appreciate about him a lot.”
After playing jayvee baseball as a freshman and losing his sophomore season to a pandemic, Young got off to a solid start as a junior in both center and on the pitching mound, only to have his season end abruptly about halfway through due to a stress fracture in his back. This became a tangled emotional puzzle for Young to solve, as he was forced into the role of cheerleader. Dennis is a big fan of Young’s style of play and has big plans for the senior this season. He plans on relying on Young and his innate ability to read balls off the bat to make the team solid defensively in center; additionally, Young will be used on the mound, likely in relief in close games since there is no moment too big for his competitive spirit.
This upcoming baseball season is likely to be the last for Young as a competitive athlete, so he wants to milk everything he can from the time he has left. As of now Young’s plans are to attend a large school with a proud athletic tradition where he can just be another student enjoying the totality of the college experience. He listed Clemson, South Carolina and Georgia as his top three schools. Young said he may major in business or economics, and expressed an ultimate desire to parlay those skills into a job in the sports industry.
To read Young’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/brett-young-0099377
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