Female Athlete of the Year: Abby Ellis

Abby Ellis

Posted 6/24/14

Abby Ellis first picked up a hockey stick a long time ago. In the time since, she went to high school and found a golf club too. A couple of years later, she added a tennis racket to her …

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Female Athlete of the Year: Abby Ellis

Abby Ellis

Posted

Abby Ellis first picked up a hockey stick a long time ago. In the time since, she went to high school and found a golf club too. A couple of years later, she added a tennis racket to her repertoire.

Ellis excelled with all of them. Her junior year saw her soar the highest.

“She’s just a great athlete,” said Toll Gate girls’ tennis coach Gary Gorman

It started in the fall, when Ellis began her tennis career with a talented Titans squad, immediately made an impact in the doubles lineup and helped them to an undefeated regular season and a Division II finals berth.

When the winter came around, she strapped on the skates and dominated the local hockey scene, serving as the best defenseman in the state on the best team, as she led Warwick all the way to the state title.

And finally, after celebrating her hockey championship, Ellis played her third season with the golf team, where she was a fixture in the top three on the co-ed team before finishing 17th at the girls’ state tournament.

It was a whirlwind, but a special year all the way from the fall to the spring.

The best highlight, though, came in the winter. With hockey as her main sport of focus, Ellis has been a three-year starter for the Lady Titans, and has been a crucial part of the program’s building process, which culminated this season.

As the postseason came around, she played some of her best hockey in leading Toll Gate to the title – the first for a public school in history – with a state championship sweep of La Salle.

“It was just a really, really surreal feeling,” Ellis said. “I knew we had potential. But the fact that we were the only public school to ever win it, we kind of took everyone by surprise. Last year, our school didn’t even know that we had a hockey team. The fact that we won it this year was amazing.”

Ellis was one of the leading scorers in the state, despite spending most of her time in the back. She finished tied for seventh in D-I with 25 points, comprised of nine goals and 16 assists.

As the bench shortened later in the season to utilize the team’s top players more, she was on the ice as much as anybody. She was simply too good to take off.

“She came in pretty talented as a freshman, but progressed each year,” said hockey head coach Dave Tibbetts. “Her game kind of evolved quite a bit from the first year. She learned how to play a tougher game, especially in the corners, battling for pucks.”

Part of the reason for Ellis’ evolution on the ice was her work with trainer Rodney Millette. She trains three times a week with the former AHL player, and it’s made quite a difference in almost every aspect of her game.

“I’ve definitely gotten lower body and upper body strength,” Ellis said. “I’ve gotten faster, better agility, all that kind of stuff. And my stick handling got better too. Every aspect of the game, I’ve improved on.”

While Ellis’s winter on the ice certainly took the cake as her most outstanding season, the fall brought some memories with it as well.

The Toll Gate tennis team was plenty talented, and Ellis decided to join because she thought she could pick it up, it would be fun and it would help her keep in shape.

That turned out to be true, as she took some time to come back from an injury, but when eventually she did she learned the sport quickly – it was her first time playing competitively – and played No. 2 doubles with Laurel Teneyck. The Titans went unbeaten, and Ellis had a huge hand in making that happen.

In the season finale, she and Teneyck were playing the last match of the night, with Toll Gate tied with Narragansett at three apiece. It came down to their match, and the two of them out-lasted their opponents in a third-set tiebreak to finish the magical regular season, Toll Gate’s first unbeaten year on record.

“That was awesome,” Ellis said. “We had so much talent and so much depth in our team. We all got along so well.”

In the spring, Ellis returned to her place on the golf team, where she had started as a freshman. She cracked the rotation her sophomore year and then became a top-three player consistently this season.

While Toll Gate went 6-8 in the division, Ellis had her moments of brilliance, including shooting a team-best 46 on May 13 in a win over Pilgrim. She hit another team-best as well, shooting 48 against Cranston West on May 8.

At states, she fired a disappointing 57 on the front nine but followed that up with a 48 to give her a total of 105.

That day actually marked the end of her high school golf career though, as Ellis will move on from Toll Gate next school year and enroll in prep school at Tabor Academy, with hockey – understandably so – as the primary focus.

The hope is that it will give Ellis the best chance of extending her hockey career to the high-level collegiate ranks.

“When someone wants to go and better themselves, we’re always supportive of that obviously,” Tibbetts said. “Her goal is to play Division I college hockey. That’s probably the best route for her to go and get up to that level.”

She will do two years of school at Tabor, repeating her junior year prior to her senior year.

Ellis is going to find out where hockey can take her.

“I’m sure there’s going to be another adjustment for her to make at that level, but she’s already got it down at this level,” Tibbetts said. “I’m sure she’s going to be successful.”

In keeping with her athletic persona, Ellis won’t just play hockey at Tabor – but she won’t play tennis or golf either. While she plans on continuing to play those sports in her leisure time, she’ll play soccer and lacrosse in prep school.

A former soccer player at Toll Gate before opting to play tennis her junior year, she’s ready to get back on the field. With lacrosse, the Titans don’t have a high school team, but she’s played since she was 8 years old.

If her past is any indication, she’ll be successful no matter what sports she pursues. Warwick’s Female Athlete of the Year has a clear track record of excelling, regardless of the sport.

“She’s just an all-around great athlete,” Tibbetts said.

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