Here’s how Philipsburg-Osceola’s Lindsey Bordas and Keegan Soltis earned Snyder Award recognition
Lindsey Bordas and Keegan Soltis have finished their high school careers with some hardware.
Bordas and Soltis were named 2020 Snyder Award winners for Philipsburg-Osceola this week. Both student-athletes found success in golf and basketball, while Soltis made his biggest mark as a baseball player.
The two honorees were excited to take home the award and praised each other for their successes.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Bordas said. “It means a lot just because I know who he is and that he’s deserving of it. It’s nice to see him get the recognition along with me.”
Soltis added: “Me and Lindsey have been friends since preschool. It’s a great achievement. It just puts us in such good company with other student-athletes. It was one of my goals going into my senior year.”
The James H. Snyder Awards are given in memory of Snyder, a former Centre Daily Times sports editor who was killed in an automobile crash in December of 1957. The awards have become an annual county staple celebrating the community’s young leaders, a pair of seniors from each of the county’s five public high schools plus St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy, who embrace academics, athletics and community service.
The two graduating seniors found plenty of success as athletes at P-O in their four years of high school. Between them, the pair earned 20 varsity letters in their careers, with 11 for Soltis and nine for Bordas.
Bordas lettered in basketball four times, golf three times and once in cross country and track. To Bordas, her most valued athletic achievement was her selection to the Mountain League All-Star golf team as a senior.
“I think it’s a high accomplishment to go to the banquet and be recognized in that way,” she said. “I always looked up to Mountain League All-Stars when I was younger. Once I finally got into high school it was a goal of mine.”
Soltis helped the Mounties golf team win the Mountain League as a senior and was also named a Mountain League All-Star in the sport. However, he did most of his damage on the diamond.
He finished his three-year baseball career, which included a canceled senior season due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a .422 batting average and a .515 on-base percentage in 63 games played. Making the state quarterfinals as a junior is his fondest memory as a Mountie baseball player.
“Last year’s team was a team that I played with for a while,” he said. “I knew we could make it a long way and we hadn’t made it to the state playoffs in a while.”
He’ll carry on his baseball career at Millersville University, where he’ll be majoring in statistics. Soltis chose Millersville, in part, because of the baseball coaching staff and how it reminded him of his P-O baseball coach Doug Sankey.
“They brought me in and made me feel like I was still playing for P-O,” Soltis said. “They coach like Coach Sankey and it was one of my favorite schools right off the bat.”
Bordas will be attending the United States Military Academy at West Point where she’ll major in mathematical sciences.
She hopes to have a career as an engineer, and believes her major opens the door for her to reach her goals.
“I always wanted to be an engineer,” she said. “I just decided that, instead of picking one type of engineering, going in with a mathematical sciences degree, I can experience a lot of the same classes and then maybe make a better informed decision of what I would want to do.”
Bordas also took four mission trips while in high school to help prepare her for life beyond high school. The trips, which were to Erie, Delaware, New Jersey and West Virginia, involved meeting new people and doing work in the communities.
“I’m very proud of the work I’ve done through mission trips with my youth group,” she said. “We just help rebuild the community, whether it’s painting a house or building a deck. You just make a huge impact people and it’s awesome.”
Soltis has given back to the P-O community in various ways, including serving as a volunteer for the YMCA, the YMCA Backpack Program and Christian Missionary Alliance Meals, as well as being an instructor for Mountaineer Baseball Camp and Little Dribblers.
The two award winners were grateful for the people they met in their time as Mounties and believe they helped prepare them for the rest of their lives.
“P-O helped me push through a lot of adversity,” Soltis said. “Coach Sankey taught me a lot of things in the four years I had him. I’ll always remember him as the best coach I had. He taught me a lot of stuff that I need for life and for baseball.”
Bordas added: “The teachers and the people that have invested their time in me and educating me and taking a few extra steps outside of the classroom (have had a big impact). Just having them letting me know that they’re there for me mattered.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 5:10 PM.
