By Michael DeFranza and Mia Oyama ’17

For many athletes, their goal is to be able to play a sport as long as possible and go to college for it. Six percent of high school athletes are able to make this dream come true, according to NCAA.org. It is an incredible accomplishment to carry over playing competitively into college. This year, 25 student-athletes in the senior grade have committed to a college and decided to continue their athletic careers.

The field hockey team has committed seven out of those 25, accumulating the most commitments at West Essex this year. Four of those are heading to a Division I school. Amanda Garofalo commited to MIT on the Division III level. MIT is known as not only hard to play for, but they also demand academic excellence from their students.

“Our senior class is very talented and full of very gifted athletes,” Coach Cosse said. “I think the variety of the schools they choose shows how diverse they were as a senior class. I am super excited for all of them. They are all going to amazing schools, each of their schools are unique for them, which makes it cool.”

A lot of work must be done in the offseason in order to lead to success during the regular season. All 25 athletes put in a tremendous amount of training, so when receiving an offer to play in college it brings a great emotional reaction that is well deserved.

Brett Reo is the only one of the 25 to play two sports in college. Reo plans on playing both football and basketball at Hope College. He will be playing linebacker in football and forward in basketball. He will be balancing this while also majoring in mechanical engineering.

P.J. Scheer has enjoyed being recruited for football and felt that being a student-athlete in college is a honor and was very fortunate. He will be playing football next year at Moravian College, although he received other offers from schools such as Muhlenberg College, Franklin & Marshall and about seven other schools.

“It was really exciting and it was an honor for me to be recognized from other schools to play football next year,” Scheer said. “Meeting the coaches and visiting the schools was an exciting process for me.”

Each year the football team is able to have athletes move on and continue their career in college. This year, four from the team decided to continue their careers, Brian O’Neill will be the first in a while going DI for football.

“It was a great feeling, that all their hard work and dedication for football has paid off,” Coach Benacquista said.

Bridget Betley’s recruitment process was interesting because of the mix of schools she got interests and offers from. She received most offers from DI and DII schools and had the option to go to a prestigious school or play right away and make a name for herself.

“Playing at Post was the better fit for me because it was closer to home and I will be getting more playing time. It was a smarter choice for me financially,” she said.

The class of 2017 has produced a high number of outstanding athletes. An impressive number of student athletes prepare this year to compete at a higher level.