Bartlett Senior Fitchburg State bound

Senior Alexis Podedworny

Text and Photos by Steev Riccardo

Webster – When you spend six years of your teenage life in the same place, it’s difficult not to grow and change along the way.

Senior Alexis Podedworny, who grew up in Webster, is now experiencing her last few weeks at Bartlett High School, and she’s had quite a ride since beginning school here in the seventh grade.

Podedworny is, for the most part, an average high school senior although her grades are above average and she plays three sports.  She works at K Mart, and likes going to the mall and the movies.

She has always had a love for sports and when she was younger “had dreams of playing with Jenny Finch on the US Softball team,” what she now calls a ”little kid dreaming.”

As primarily a reserve, she played soccer for six years, made strides and has started on the girls softball team; she also started running track “to get better prepared for softball season.” 

“I don’t consider myself the fastest runner, so it helped me get a jump start on my running,” is how she explained her decision to try out for and make the indoor track team in her senior year.

Her softball coach and English teacher, Colleen Nasis, has been an inspiration to Podedworny both as a coach and a teacher. “Seeing Lexi and how she has she has grown up since the seventh grade—I’m very proud of her.”

“When she was younger she was very quiet and meek and had no confidence whatsoever in academics and in athletics,” said Nasis.  “She has worked extremely hard not just to gain confidence but to be one of the best in her class.  I’m proud because she didn’t make the softball team in her seventh grade year, and she cried—but it didn’t stop her from coming back out for the team the next year. She won’t quit; she doesn’t like to be out on the spotlight with anything but she definitely is proud of her accomplishments as we are. In school itself, I don’t think there are many stronger students than she is: her work ethic, holding a job, paying for things on her own, being a positive role model for her family and continuing on to Fitchburg State.”

Nasis played an even bigger role in Podedworny’s life than Nasis may have realized. “She’s been a role model to me not just on the field but in the classroom and as a person.  She likes to help everyone; she helped me in the seventh grade when my parents were going through a divorce. I didn’t speak to my parents at all about it.”

But she did speak to Nasis about the inner turmoil she was going through. Nasis could relate to Podedworny’s struggling having seen her own family strife first hand. “My parents divorced and I remember how I felt also. She looked really scared. I knew her mother, and our families have known each other from being in town. My cousin and her mother were roommates in college. She was able to use that tough time and create something positive for herself; she didn’t give up.”

As the years went on and Nasis remained in the picture, it made it easier for Podedworny to understand and deal with her own parents’ divorce.

She also heard her coach say that she was someone that she expected to see good things from on the softball field this year.  Simply hearing her coach express that made her feel as though she has accomplished a lot. The fact that she wasn’t one of the team stars didn’t matter because it was about her role and being part of the team.

Podedworny has a lot of close friends at the school including her softball teammate, Dani Stone, and has enjoyed her high school years but says, “My high school experience was pretty exciting, but in all honesty it’s time to move on to the real world and move on to bigger things.”

The bigger things Podedworny speaks of will revolve around majoring in Graphic Design at Fitchburg State University, something she is very excited about.

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