The Rye Lions Club named Matea Friedel, the Girls’ Captain of the Rye High track team, as Athlete of the Month for March.

 

By Mitch Silver

The Rye Lions Club named Matea Friedel, the Girls’ Captain of the Rye High track team, as Athlete of the Month for March.

Friedel, who broke the Garnets’ female record in the pole vault with a 10-foot jump, has earned eight varsity letters and twice been named to the Westchester All-County Track and Field Team. She participated at the State level this past winter season and looks forward to making it again this spring.

“Our whole team is looking forward to a strong season,” she said. “And I’m excited and proud to have won this award.”

A member of the Hudson Valley Flying Circus Pole Vault Academy for the past four years, Friedel will attend vaulting camps at Penn State and UCLA this summer. She’s also Vice-President of the Gay-Straight Alliance Club, President of the Animal Welfare Club (interning this spring at White Plains Animal Hospital), and earned a Black Belt from Bruce Chung’s Tae Kwan Do academy in Harrison as a middle schooler.

Friedel is no slouch in the classroom, either. A member of the National Honor Society, she’s made the High Honor roll every semester and won departmental awards in Psychology, U.S. History, and Spanish. This fall, she’ll be attending Tufts University and enrolling in the pre-veterinary program.

It’s clear Matea Friedel isn’t only going high. She’s going far.