Wildcat stars receive four-year scholarships
Published 8:25 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
SNOQUALMIE – Two stars from Mount Si High School signed college sports scholarships last week.
Volleyball sensation Marissa Hill last Wednesday signed a national letter of intent and has accepted a full scholarship to play volleyball for Western Washington University, and Amy Trenkamp, who played the last two seasons on the varsity girls’ soccer team, signed a scholarship offer to play softball in the spring of 2006 with Charleston Southern University.
Hill attracted interest from Division I schools like Boise State University and the University of Illinois-Chicago, but chose Western because of its communications program and the coaches.
“They have a brand new communications building there, so that was a huge part in my decision, and I really like the coach, Diane [Flick], and James [Suh] is a really cool assistant coach,” Hill said.
The Vikings are members of the NCAA Division II Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Among the schools Hill will play in college is Central Washington University (CWU). On the CWU Wildcats roster is Hill’s former Mount Si teammate Maggie Olson, a redshirt freshman this season for CWU. Hill is excited about the opportunity to compete against her former teammate.
“It’s going to be fun. [Maggie and I] have always been competitors, and it’ll be fun to play against her, and I haven’t seen her in a year. Playing with her for a few years was a great opportunity, but it’ll be nice to actually play against her,” Hill said.
Seattle Pacific University, Seattle University and St. Martin’s College in Lacey are also members of this conference. As of last Friday, the Vikings were 17-7 this season, and on the verge of postseason play, so it is likely that Hill will be joining a very strong program next season.
Hill is excited about what lies ahead at Western.
“I think Western’s going to be a good fit for me. I thought that I’d want to go out of state but I really like the campus, and Bellingham, it’s really nice, so I think it’ll be good for me, and I’m so close to home, so my mom doesn’t have to really travel that far to come see me,” Hill said, adding that former Mount Si teammates Amy Keogh and Zoe Nelson, while neither are playing college volleyball at Western, both are students there.
Hill and Olson join Stephanie Turner-Sales, currently a junior at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, as recent Mount Si stars who will be making a name for themselves in college volleyball. Hill credits that strong chain of recent success to her highschool coach, Wildcat volleyball coach Bonnie Foote.
“Coach Foote is just an all-around great coach. She has done so much for the program out here in the Valley, and, I mean, volleyball isn’t that huge of a thing out here. It’s [much] bigger in the Kent area, so she came out here and really put her heart into her program and she’s done a great job with it,” Hill said. “I owe her so much.”
Hill was joined softball shortstop Amy Trenkamp, who also signed her scholarship last Wednesday. Trenkamp’s future school, Charleston Southern University, is a NCAA Division I school and is in the Big South Conference. Closeness to family was the deciding factor for Trenkamp, who has family located all over the Eastern United States.
“I have a lot of family on the East Coast. Instead of having to buy a really expensive plane ticket to come home for the holidays, I can go six hours to Orlando and see my aunt and uncle, or Tennessee, I have family in Charleston,” Trenkamp said.
Trenkamp chose Charleston Southern over other small East Coast schools, among them New Jersey’s Rider University and New York’s Marist College.
She plans on majoring in sports psychology, along with a minor in education with a possible eye on coaching after she graduates.
