Genevieve Turner

Sports Editor

Soccer attacking center midfielder Delaney Bittner won the October 15 GameTimePA YAIAA Athlete of the Week. Each week people get the chance to vote for the GameTimePA YAIAA Athletes of the Week at https://www.ydr.com/gametimepa/. 

This is the second week that senior Delaney Bittner has been nominated. 

She finished with four goals in last Thursday’s YAIAA win against South Western, which earned her a nomination. As of 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Bittner came in first place out of the seven girls on the poll. She won with a total of 4,750 votes. 

Bittner has played on varsity all four years of her high school career. She started playing when she was four years old and has since been playing for the last 13 years. 

Bittner has also accumulated multiple awards and accomplishments over the years. She won 2x First-Team All-County, 2x Varsity Captain, 2017 Varsity Newcomer of the Year, 2018 Outstanding Effort Award, and the 2019 Red Lion Player of the Year. 

“I am honored to have been nominated twice,” said Bittner. “The support I got from my teammates, friends, and family was unreal.”

In previous years Bittner said that she struggled to move into an offensive role, but this year she has fully embraced it.“My biggest triumph this season has been my switch into more of an attacking role,” said Bittner. “I feel like in the previous years I have been more defensive minded, and didn’t really transition much into offense.” 

Her success thus far was not always guaranteed. “My biggest struggle this season has been all the uncertainty with COVID,” Bittner said. “We didn’t know if we would even have a season for a long time, so it was hard to keep the intensity up while we would only be allowed to play each other.” 

Her confidence since the beginning of the season has changed. “I also feel like the confidence my coach has in me has made a huge difference in my play,” Bittner said. “He believes in me which makes it easier to believe in myself.” 
“I would like to give a huge shoutout to my awesome teammates for being my personal hype up crew,” said Bittner. “And being amazing per usual.”