Ivy leagues accept area athletes early
by TOM UTESCHER
Mid-December is when most of the Ivy League universities
answer high school hopefuls who’ve submitted “early action”
applications, and after anxious hours checking mailboxes and special admissions
websites, a number of area student-athletes recently learned that they’ll
continue their playing careers at the prestigious schools they’d
set their hearts on.
A pair of Chestnut Hill Academy squash players got good news; Brooks
Russell will be attending the University of Pennsylvania, and Ian Holton
is headed to Cornell. Both played lacrosse for CHA last spring, but they’ll
focus on squash in college. Russell is in his second season as the Blue
Devils’ number one player, and at Penn he’ll join former CHA
standout Gilly Lane, currently the top player on the Quakers’ ladder.
Holton, a member Chestnut Hill’s Inter-Ac champion squash squad
last winter, has moved up to the number five spot this year. He was also
a starter on the Blue Devils’ soccer team, which was the Inter-Ac
runner-up this fall.
Princeton University women’s teams will benefit from the talents
of Alicia Aemisegger and Jenna Washabaugh of Germantown Academy, Kait
Woznicki of Mount St. Joseph Academy, and Emery Maine of Springside School.
In the swimming pool, the highly-accomplished Aemisegger is a jack-of-all-trades,
and is pretty much master of them all, too. Considered by many to be the
top swimmer in the region since her sophomore year, she played a huge
role in the Patriots’ winning their third straight team title at
the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships last season.
She won both the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle, and was
part of victorious relay teams in the 200 medley relay (swimming breaststroke)
and the 400 freestyle relay.
Maine and Washabaugh will both play lacrosse for the Tigers, who field
one of the elite programs in the U.S. In addition to helping GA win two
Girls Inter-Ac League titles in lacrosse, Washabaugh has shared in three
basketball championships and three cross-country championships with the
Patriots. Last spring, she played on the Upper Atlantic Region Schoolgirls
First Team at the U.S. Lacrosse Women’s National Tournament.
Maine is best known for her prowess with a racquet; she’s a six-year
varsity squash player for Springside and was a member of the U.S. Junior
National Team that played at the World Championships in Belgium last summer.
She’s played varsity lacrosse and field hockey since her freshman
year (Springside was league runner-up in lacrosse in her sophomore season),
but had to sit out the 2005 lacrosse season after contracting mononucleosis.
Woznicki played basketball early in her career at Mount St. Joe’s,
but has been focusing exclusively on volleyball for the past three years.
A 6’2” middle hitter, she led the Magic to back-to-back Bicentennial
League championships as a junior and senior, and the Mount reached the
PIAA District I quarterfinals twice during her tenure.
Another Mountie who gained early Ivy admission is rower Francesca Crozier-Fitzgerald,
who’ll be pulling for the Columbia University Lions next year. She
was a member of the MSJ varsity eight that won the gold medal at the Stotesbury
Regatta last spring, and over the summer she was invited to the U.S. Rowing
Developmental Camp. Although Columbia is not one of the traditional league
powers in the sport, the Lions boasted a strong novice eight last year,
and Crozier Fitzgerald is also looking forward to taking advantage of
Columbia’s urban location and its renowned school of journalism.
Meanwhile, Mount field hockey tri-captain Katie Burke will tote her stick
down to Franklin Field, where she’ll join a University of Pennsylvania
team that already had four Mount alums on the roster this fall. A three-year
varsity starter who can play midfield or back, Burke also contributed
a strong outside shot to the offense. During her tenure the Mount won
the Catholic Academies championship twice and reached the PIAA state tournament
three times.
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