Name: Ryan Fink
High school: Schuylkill Haven Area High School
Grade: Senior
Sport: Baseball
Position(s): Second baseman
Accomplishments: Had a single and scored two runs in the Hurricanes’ 7-1 win over Tri-Valley on Wednesday, then delivered the game-winning, two-run single in the top of the eighth inning in Saturday’s 2-0 win at Kutztown. For the season, Fink is batting .391 (9-for-23) with three doubles, six RBIs and eight stolen bases as Schuylkill Haven has opened the season 7-0.
Age: 18
Hometown: Schuylkill Haven
Family: Father, Dennis; Mother, Kimberly; brothers, Andrew and Evan
Athletes I admire: Former Washington Redskin Sean Taylor, Mike Trout
Favorite sports teams: New York Mets, Washington Redskins, New York Rangers, Cleveland Cavaliers
What age did you start playing baseball: 5
Travel team: Played for the West End Outlaws as 11-, 12- and 13-year-old
Other sports you participate in: Football
What has been the key to Haven’s hot start: “Team continuity. It’s more of a collective group than any other year and any other sport. We do a lot of things together, like wing nights, hang out on weekends. Everybody gets along.”
Individual goals for this season: “I don’t really have any individual goals. As a team, we’d like to win districts and compete in the state playoffs.”
How much has last year’s postseason run impacted this year’s team: “It helps a lot. It really got everybody on board, and showed us that we could do it. We lost in the first round of districts my freshman and sophomore years, and last year we finally broke through. No one thought we could win districts, and we did. It was a lot of fun. Everyone knows what we’re going toward now.”
Post-graduation plans: Plans to attend Lebanon Valley College to play football and major in business administration.
Past winners
• March 31 — Sara Tobin, Pottsville, softball
• April 6 — Rayan Green, Jim Thorpe, track and field
