As with every year, seniors are gearing up for college. Some, however, have decided to take a path less traveled. A few of these individuals include Cat Vaccaro, Melanie Hanclich, Kate Cressey, Gillian Schiffer and Sarah Bloomquist. All of these athletes will be continuing their passion for sports at the collegiate level. Many of these individuals have played their sports for years and just consider it to be part of the process to continue playing. Their leadership will be missed as they take their talents to the collegiate level.
The process of getting recruited and playing a sport in college is no small task. Senior Kate Cressey has been working on the recruitment process since seventh grade.
“I knew I was interested in Stanford, so I would email them and notify them of tournaments I was going to and then freshman year they started looking at me and coming to my games,” Cressey said.
Cressey has been a verbal commit to Stanford ever since sophomore year. She was drawn there by the ability to play very competitive softball as well as getting an incomparable education.
One of the most successful sports at Yorktown recently has been the soccer team, who won the VHSL 6A State Championship just last year. With such a successful program, it’s only natural that some of these individuals would go on to play soccer in college. Gillian Schiffer, a midfielder for the Patriots, will be playing soccer at West Point next year. Schiffer has obviously spent a lot of time talking to other college players as when asked about playing in college, she gave a very clear reason.
“You get so much more out of your experience there [West Point] and you have more of a purpose,” Schiffer said.
Another successful program recently has been the volleyball team, who will be sending two of their graduating seniors off to play division one volleyball. Vaccaro will be playing volleyball at Loyola University Maryland while Hanclich will be playing beach volleyball at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Led by Hanclich and Vaccaro, the Yorktown Patriots volleyball team is ranked fifth in 6A so far this year and have a 9-2 record. Both Hanclich and Vaccaro have been playing volleyball for many years.
“It’s been a long time. I started playing on clubs when I was nine,” said Vaccaro.
One might think that after all these years Vaccaro might be tired of the sport, but last year she decided she wanted to continue playing and committed to Loyola.
“I was going back and forth for a really long time on whether or not I wanted to play in college but last year I just kept thinking about it and realized ‘wait I really like playing volleyball and it’d be really fun to play in college,’” said Vaccaro.
Hanclich will be playing beach volleyball in college. She switched over from traditional volleyball and has been playing beach volleyball for five years now; however, she still plays volleyball for Yorktown.
“UAB not only has a division one sport that I love playing, but they also have one of the top ten medical programs in the country and that’s something I want to go into, so overall it’s a good fit athletically and academically,” said Hanclich.
College sports definitely have a big draw for some students. It is a way to continue fulfilling your athletic potential and to stay in shape as you enter college. It also helps set you into a good, supportive environment as you set foot on the college campus. Sarah Bloomquist, who will be playing lacrosse at the University of Chicago, summed up her decision perfectly.
“I stepped on campus and I just kind of felt it, it had what I wanted to do for graduate school and everyone [on the team] was really nice and enthusiastic about the things I’m enthusiastic about.” said Bloomquist.
Playing sports at the collegiate level is a huge commitment, but for these athletes it is a part of the athletic process. These Patriots are inspirations to many and are sure to be missed both in the classroom and on the field.
