Six Abington student-athletes sign letters of intent
Growing up Leah Simmons thought and wanted to play college basketball, following in her mother’s footsteps.
Simmons, along with five fellow Abington classmates, inked her National Letter of Intent to play college sports for next year. Simmons however did not sign for the original sport she thought she would be playing as she signed to Canisius College to play volleyball.
“I was always set on playing basketball growing up because it was my number one sport,” Simmons said. “I guess I decided more after I made the (volleyball) club team in 10th grade and I saw how good everyone was I just fell in love more with volleyball and realized that playing in college was an option.”
Simmons, a key cog for the Ghosts basketball squad, helped lead the Ghosts to a District One AAAA playoff appearance last season as they earned a first round victory against Ridley.
A teammate of Simmons on the volleyball team, Emma Garg, also singed a NLI Tuesday morning as she will be taking her talents to Kutztown to play lacrosse. Like Simmons, Garg’s choice was a difficult one as she too had to weigh her options as to which school and which sport she was going to commit to playing.
“It was definitely neck and neck because I played club for both sports,” Garg said of her decision to play lacrosse. “I was basically just waiting to see what offers I got from either and more came for lacrosse and more that I liked.”
Another teammate of Simmons, on the hoops team, Sammy Lochner announced her intent to play basketball at St. Peter’s University. Lochner and Simmons figure to be key pieces on the Ghosts basketball squad this winter as they look to capture an elusive District One AAAA championship as Abington fell in the district final last season to CB West.
The Ghosts girls lacrosse team was well represented as three of the six signees were members of the squad that made it to the district playoffs last season. Kristen Pedicone and Mikki Raymond signed Millersville University and LaSalle University respectively.
With the trio’s signings now out of the way they look to embark on a season that will hopefully result in a deep district playoff run after getting a taste of the playoffs last year and return a team that only lost three seniors from a year ago.
“I think it shows that hard work turns into accomplishment,” Raymond said of the three lacrosse players that signed. “It’s really cool to see that not only me getting this opportunity but friends that I go to school with.”
“Now I feel like I can work even harder than I did before,” Raymond added about the impending season and getting her college decision over with. “I don’t have as much stress (about) where am I going to go? What am I going to do? Now I can really just focus on getting good grades in school (and) expanding what I can do in lacrosse too.”
Last but not least, Nicolette Ray signed her intent to play softball at Bloomsburg University. Ray was the best player on the Ghosts softball team a year ago as she helped power them to a second round showing in the District One AAAA playoffs as she looks to lead the Ghosts to great heights again next year.
