Lancaster, Pa. 2012 SPRING ALLSTARS JUNE 18, 2012 9

Devon SchneiDerManheiM TownShip aThleTeS of The Year 2011-12

BY MATT BLYMIERSports Staff

Take skills such as power, technique and precision and add intangibles like work ethic, IQ, drive, desire and dedication.

Pack all of that into a 6-foot, 1-inch frame and put that athlete on a volleyball court and a lacrosse field.

What you get is one of the best volley-ball players in the state and one of the top lacrosse players in the country.

What you get is Devon Schneider.For her achievements on the field and

behind the net, Schneider has been named Lancaster Newspapers Female Athlete of the Year.

The Manheim Township senior was cho-sen over a strong field of candidates that included Elizabethtown’s Sarah Fairbanks, Warwick’s Emily Cameron and Lancaster Mennonite’s Jess Rheinheimer.

For Schneider, playing lacrosse was a given, while her path to the volleyball court was unexpected.

She didn’t start playing volleyball until her freshman year at the encouragement of her mom.

Three games into her freshman season, Schneider was called up to the varsity. As a sophomore, she was an All-Section One honorable mention selection. Her junior year, she was named All-Section One and was a District Three All-Star. She repeated those accomplishments as a senior and added an All-State selection to her list of accolades.

“You’re talking about a top-level ath-lete,” former Township volleyball coach Terry Hutchinson said. “Probably one of the top 1 or 2 percent in the state.

“She had athleticism and court awareness from the beginning and you can tell when an athlete has that. She picked up on the game quickly and quickly learned the details of volleyball.”

Schneider’s early memories of lacrosse were of watching her dad coach the Milton (Ga.) lacrosse team when she was in elementary school.

“I was always on the sideline with a stick in my hand,” Schneider recalled.

Schneider, who was also a

All the right ingredientsLevel 10 gymnast in elementary school, and her family later moved to Pennsylva-nia. She began playing organized lacrosse for the first time in fifth grade. By the time she reached high school, said Township coach Mark Pinkerton, Schneider started showing glimpses of how good she could become.

“In seventh and eighth grade, she was really good,” said Pinkerton, who has coached Schneider since fifth grade. “By ninth grade she started to separate herself from the other players. She started to grow (in height) and her confidence and ability started to show.”

As a freshman, Schneider earned the first of four All-L-L League First Team se-lections and helped her team to the first of four District Three championships. By her sophomore year, she was named the L-L’s Player of the Year, an award she would get the rest of her scholastic career.

None of those individual awards mattered as much as her team’s success, according to Pinkerton.

“She’s a consummate team player,” Pinkerton said. “She’s much more interested in how the team does rather than what she has achieved. I can’t say enough about her leadership and her desire for the team to win.”

Hutchinson agreed.“She’s an all-Amer-

ican on the field and off the field,” he said.

“She’s as

humble as they come and always credits her teammates.”

By the time Schneider finished her high school career, she had been named a U.S. Lacrosse All-American three times, landed on the Under Armour All-America team, which goes to only 44 players in the country, earned a partial scholarship to the University of Florida and is considered the best girls’ lacrosse player to ever come out of this area.

“We’ve had some good players in the area (District Three),” Pinkerton said. “But when you factor in Devon’s all-around — offense, defense and draw controls — she’s the most complete player we’ve ever had.”

Florida coach Amanda O’Leary sees the same things in Schneider.

“We knew she was a special player who had a ton of potential,” O’Leary wrote in an email. “She had very good size and was able to get up and down the field with ease.

She could play at both ends of the field.“We believe Devon is a great fit for

our program and we have very high expectations of her and what she can achieve.”

Schneider said she’s ready for the next step in her academic and

athletic career but she’s enjoyed ev-ery bit of the ride getting there.

“It’s been amazing,” she said. “It’s more than I

could have ever asked for.”

m b l y m i e r @lnpnews.com

After a notable scholastic career in lacrosse and volleyball at Manheim Township, Devon Schneider’s next stop is the University of Florida.