SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of Jan. 21, 2026)
It’s a story that’s been written countless times. How a player – with the 1,000-point milestone on the horizon – has an entourage showing up at their game to witness the historic moment. It’s a safe bet they will have their cell phones ready to record the basket, and almost always, they will have balloons and/or sometimes flowers in tow. It’s not unusual for players to acknowledge feeling pressure and immense relief when the wait is over. Ava Culler isn’t in that number.
With only her grandfather from her family in attendance, the Springfield Twp senior reached the 1,000-point milestone when everyone least expected it – on the road at Central Bucks West. Turns out Culler was far
more concerned about winning the game than following the planned script and keeping her point total under 29 – the magic number to reach the 1,000-point milestone. The celebration was decidedly modest when – midway through the third quarter – Culler buried a foul shot to complete a three-point play for the 1,000th point of her career. “I got home, and everybody was mad at me,” Culler said. “But it’s about winning the game.”
Culler’s coach, teammates, family and friends made sure the milestone was celebrated appropriately three days later at the Spartans’ night game at home against Harry S Truman. In truth, Culler had to be considered an unlikely candidate to reach the thousand-point milestone when she came on board at Springfield Twp. Granted, she had played basketball for fun as a youngster growing up, but she was a relative newcomer to organized basketball and had only been playing since eighth grade, missing half of that season with a concussion. Although her opportunities were limited in middle school since it also was during the COVID years, Culler still had lofty goals when she entered high school “The thought of getting 1,000 points came my freshman year, and it was something I wanted to achieve,” she said. “I started loving basketball more as I got into it.”
It was not always smooth sailing for Culler, who battled an injury most her freshman season and scored just 39 points. But Giordano knew he had inherited a special talent. “We knew she was raw,” the Spartans’ coach said. “Freshman year she had some shoulder issues, but she committed strongly to hoops. She really loved basketball, and I told her this numerous times – she had that factor you only see in a handful of girls. She’s the female version of Dennis Rodman – she goes after everything. She goes for balls other girls don’t even think of leaving their feet for. I knew she was special right there, and she really enjoyed playing defense. Anything close to the basket – if she had the ball, it was going back up, and she was going to finish. It was nothing I could coach. You could just see she had it.”
Each year, Culler upped her game. “We did the best we could for her with what we had available freshman year,” Giordano said. “But she really put in a lot of work between the summer of her freshman and sophomore year, and she came back stronger. She was jumping higher, and when everything came together junior and senior year, she was like Mose Malone. She’d throw the ball up, whether she had a clean look or not, knowing that by the time the ball came off the rim, she was already landing and going back up again to get another rebound. She just had that knack. Once we realized she had that knack, we tried to run our offense through her on the low post. She also started to develop in other ways. Her handle got better, her jump shot got better, and she has a motor that doesn’t stop. I’m like – ‘We really have somebody special here.’”
Culler – a solid student - will be a welcome addition to some collegiate basketball program next year, although she has not made a final decision. She plans to major in sports medicine or exercise science with her sights set on one day becoming an athletic trainer. She is interning with Springfield Twp’s athletic trainer, Sal Raffa. It’s a job that feels right not only because of her interest in sports but also the opportunity to help others. For now, Culler is focused on closing out her final high school season on a high note. “It’s been just a pleasure to watch her,” Giordano said. “She’s a great teammate, she’s a great captain. She’s been a captain for two years. The girls love her – she has a great relationship with everybody. She just wants to play, she loves to play basketball. She’ll be playing in college. She’s not a secret anymore. She’s kind of a late bloomer, and I think she’ll do quite well.”
To read Culler’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/ava-culler-00122698
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Jan. 21, 2026)
While it’s true that nobody is perfect, perhaps New Hope Solebury senior Colin Foster is a reasonable work in progress toward that impossible end. The three-sport athlete (football, wrestling, lacrosse) is class president. His 4.52 GPA had him ranked second when the year commenced. And, oh yeah, he started off as a Boy Scout and is now an Eagle Scout who likes to get away from it all by camping. “Is he too good to be true? Absolutely,” said New Hope lacrosse coach Jeff Bruemmer. “He’s just one of a kind. He’s a regular guy, too. There’s no aloofness. The other players respect him. He’s the ultimate boy scout, and yet he is a down-to-earth kid as well.” Added wrestling coach Dustin Blevins: “He’s a wonderful young man. He’s a multi-sport athlete, excellent student, hungry to learn, respectful, active in the community and class president. It’s been a pleasure to coach him the last four years. If I had a dozen Colin Fosters, I’d be thrilled.”
May 15, 2025. It is a day that will live in infamy for Foster. That’s when he made a wrong cut in a controlled flag football game with incoming freshmen and sustained a horrific ankle injury. Just when he thought being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys amid Giants and Eagles fans amounted to adverse conditions, he was met with true adversity. When his ankle turned the wrong way, Foster could have turned the wrong way and turned his back on the football team. But that’s not him, or who is. The son of Amy and Jim Foster, and older brother of freshman softball player Morgan Foster, he made the best of a bad situation. “It was definitely a huge disappointment, losing my senior year, because I know I’m not going to play football in college,” said the pending mechanical engineering major who was recently accepted to Purdue and is also looking at the likes of Penn State, Georgia Tech and Carnegie Melon. “I still wanted to be involved though because I love the team and love the sport.”
Staying involved equated to becoming a student assistant coach, especially on the defensive side of the ball, where he initially excelled at linebacker before settling in at safety and leading the team in tackles twice. Although head football coach Dale Smith never had the chance to coach Foster, he came to appreciate the senior on a deeper level. “Absolutely,” said Smith. “At practices and games, he was helping our (defensive coordinator) up in the booth. He wore a headset and was relaying what he was seeing to the coach. He essentially became a student coach.”
This winter, Foster is back on the mat for the wrestling team, winning 10 of his first 11 matches. His return has been a welcome sight for Blevins, who was always optimistic about Foster’s return. Beyond wins and losses, there are the intangibles that Foster brings to the wrestling room. “He’s an excellent leader. He leads by example on the mat and uplifts his teammates at every turn,” said Blevins. “He is the kind of a kid who does everything the right way and his teammates look at him as an example.”
While he is looking forward to planning the senior class trip and Spirit Week, Foster is also eyeing what will be his last athletic hurrah with the lacrosse team where he is a faceoff specialist and a midfielder. Foster will be a second-year captain for Bruemmer this spring, leading vocally and by example. “I’ve known Colin for a long time,” said the seven-year coach. “He always had skills and leadership, but not to this degree. There is no tailing off with him. He has just kept getting better and better. Even as a freshman, the seniors recognized him as a great player and as a leader. He goes 105 percent. There is no low gear for Colin. His playing ability is an example. The players will say, ‘Put out like Colin does.’ It’s just maximum effort all the time. You know you are going to get from him everything that he can give you.”
And now that he is a senior, the legend of Colin Foster has only grown. “Colin is kind of an anomaly,” said Bruemmer. “You don’t get too many Colin Fosters in your lifetime. What you see and what you hear is really the truth. He’s an outstanding student. He’s an outstanding athlete – in football, wrestling and lacrosse – and he’s a great leader. And, really, he is a pretty much down to earth guy, too. There is no false pretense to him. He is known throughout the school. He’s great kid and he has a great future ahead of him.”
To read Foster’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/colin-foster-00122696
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