Panas Senior Named New York Volleyball Player of the Year

CORTLANDT, NY — The Gatorade Company announced Yvette Burcescu, senior at Walter Panas High School, as its 2016-17 Gatorade New York Volleyball Player of the Year.

Burcescu is the first Gatorade New York Volleyball Player of the Year to be chosen from Walter Panas High School. The Panas Volleyball team won the school’s first New York State Championship this school year. The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Burcescu as New York’s best high school volleyball player.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.

The 6-foot-3 junior outside hitter led the Panthers to a 51-2-4 record and the Class A state championship this past season. Burcescu recorded 663 kills, 125 service aces and 103 blocks. A MaxPreps First Team All - American, she was also named MVP of the Class A state tournament and earned First Team All - State honors for the second time.

Burcescu has volunteered locally on behalf of a nursing home and her school’s STAR (Students Terminating Abusive Relationships) Club.

“Burcescu has always been an exceptionally powerful and intelligent hitter,” said Mark Finegan, head coach at Pelham Memorial High. “She’s worked hard to become a very good all -around player too. She serve-receives and defends with tremendous energy and skill, and her serve is overpowering, the best I witnessed all season.”

Burcescu has maintained an A average in the classroom.

PHOTO/contributed