Maples select McIntire, Phillips
Abigail McIntire is Mapletown's female spring sports selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
Garrett Phillips is Mapletown's male spring sports selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
Abigail McIntire and Garrett Phillips have plenty in common, including a plan to study nursing at Waynesburg University, but they now share something else, as the Mapletown seniors were selected as their school’s spring sports selections in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program.
McIntire, daughter of Nancy and Doug McIntire, of Greensboro, maintains a 3.9 GPA and has two brothers, Kyle, a 21-year-old physical therapy student at Slippery Rock University, and Braden, a fifth grader at Mapletown. Phillips, son of Dave Phillips, of Mount Morris, is an only child who maintains a 4.1 GPA.
Abby, as McIntire is known to teammates and other friends, is the primary pitcher for Mapletown’s softball team. On the rare occasions when she does not pitch, she will be found on second base. She is also an outside hitter on the volleyball team.
“I am going to Waynesburg University and plan to get into the nursing program,” McIntire said. “I want to play softball there, but academics have to come first. You need a 3.5 GPA to get into the nursing program, so softball would have to come second.”
Her affinity for the medical field comes quite naturally.
“My father works at Ruby Memorial Hospital as a biomedical engineer and that has made me want to pursue a career in the medical field,” she said. “And, ever since I was young, I have been fascinated by medical fields, being in the emergency room is like fun to me. I like trauma, it excites me. I love the thrill of it.”
As for McIntire’s most memorable sports moment, it wasn’t very hard to remember.
“It actually just happened,” McIntire said. “We were playing Jefferson and they hadn’t scored any runs yet and it was the bottom of the sixth inning and they had the bases loaded and two outs. I had to go after their girl, I couldn’t rattle myself. I ended up striking her out to end the game and we won, 11-0.”
The win over J-M, actually the season sweep over the Lady Rockets, was a long time in the making. That made it more special to be a part of, according to McIntire.
“It’s a really big thing for us to beat Jefferson,” she said. “We try every year to beat them and we are always so close and we found a way to beat them twice this year.”
Her father not only introduced her to the medical field, but to the softball field, as well. Doug McIntire is the Lady Maples softball coach.
“Both of my parents have always pushed me to play my greatest,” she said. “If I have a bad game, they always pick me up afterwards, especially my dad, since he’s our coach. He always critiques me and helps me to be a better pitcher.”
Garrett is a catcher on the Mapletown baseball team and also wrestled (at 170 pounds) in the winter. Baseball is his favorite sport and he knows the importance of the position he plays.
“It’s very involved, being the catcher,” Phillips said. “You have to be on your toes, definitely. I’m also a team captain, I try to take it pretty seriously.”
So, too, he will take seriously his plans to study nursing.
“I plan to go to Waynesburg University to study nursing,” Phillips said. “I guess if the opportunity presented itself, I would consider playing baseball, but I’m not really going after it.”
Phillips was not guided into the medical field by family or friends. In his case, it was born out of a necessity to work.
“I kind of looked at it as job security,” he said. “I was always told that if you went into the medical field, especially nursing, there would always be a job and that’s something that is really important to me.”
His sports inspiration has always been his father, who always wanted his son to be the best he could be.
“He always pushed me to do better and he’s always been there for me,” Garrett Phillips said. “I guess you could say that when things got rough on the field, after we came home the talks we had were always something that stuck with me. He always taught me to keep my head held high. Confidence level is important and that is always something he tried to instill.”
Confidence is something else both of these scholar/athletes have in common.