By Kim J. Harmon

For three years, Christie Iwanicki was a good high school athlete. But it was in that fourth year – with her future looming in front of her – that she became great.

Something happened in the six months between the last basketball game of her junior year and the first volleyball match of her senior year. Some might call it a transformation, but it was more like an invisible barrier between who she was and who she could be had been torn down.

And the change was very noticeable.

“People were asking me all the time what happened,” said Christie, 17. “Between my junior and senior years, I was on an AAU (basketball) team that went to nationals and I was playing with and some of the top recruited kids in the nation. Our team really came together and I developed these amazing friendships. I was great friends with the seniors and I wanted to do my best their season an unforgettable one … and I kept that fire.”

It was that fire that helped Christie lead the volleyball team to a 17-4 record and into the CIAC Class L quarterfinals and the girls basketball team to a 15-8 record and into the second round of the CIAC Class L state tournament and it was why she was an easy choice as the Newtown High School Female Athlete of the Year.

The Fire

It was in a basketball game against rival Joel Barlow earlier in the year and Newtown was clinging to a two-point lead when Christie went down hard with a sprained ankle.

She was helped from the court, but the game went on and as the Lady Nighthawks struggled to stay ahead of a strong Lady Falcons team, Christie was being examined by athletic trainer Tim Crowley. The trainer then had Christie run a bit in the hall, cutting and turning on the ankle.

His advice: Sit out the rest of the game.

“I got up in his face,” Christie said. “We were up by two points and we were not going to lose. It killed me, but I had to get back in the game. I didn’t want to let my teammates down.”

The ‘Hawks went on to win the game, 58-50, and Christie later closed out her senior season with a team-high 379 points (705 for her career, 13th all-time) and spots on both the All-SWC and All-State teams. It was her second All-State selection of the 2006-07 school year as she earned that honor the previous fall in volleyball.

It is a testament to her ability and desire that she achieved All-State in volleyball seeing as how she only picked up the sport as a sophomore. The year before, she had played soccer – but, Christie admitted, “I couldn’t imagine trying to play soccer in college.”

Physical education instructor Dan Winsett gets credit for turning her on to volleyball and head volleyball coach Tom Czaplinski gets credit for making her into the kind of player she became.

“I never would have gotten All-State without Tom,” said Christie. “He would do anything to make you better and he is the best coach I ever had.”

The accomplishment is more remarkable because Christie, a setter, played her entire senior year – volleyball and basketball – with a broken pinkie finger suffered in practice.

“I sucked it up without the surgery,” she said. “I would have to miss six weeks of something with surgery and I didn’t want to miss a day of anything. It’s tough, too, because setting is hard and you’re always using your hands.”

With her spectacular efforts on the volleyball and basketball courts, Christie caught the attention of a lot of different schools – such as Division II Concordia (for volleyball) and Mercy (for basketball) and Division III Quinnipiac (for volleyball). But she settled on Division III Suffolk University in the Beacon Hill section of Boston where she has a chance to step right in as the two guard.

“Some of the other schools were too small and the financial situation with Quinnipiac just didn’t work out,” said Christie, who talked throughout the fall and winter with coach Ed Leyden. “I visited Suffolk and I really liked it and the coach told me I could get some playing time right away.”

First she has to get that surgery – and then work on those skills (“I have a Division I right hand and a Division III left hand,” she said). But after proving herself as one of the best players in the South-West Conference, she is ready to take the next step.

“I’m nervous and excited,” she said. “But I’m confident because the coach said they could really use me.”

 With the high school phase of her career now behind her, Christie (the third Iwanicki to shoot the rock for the Nighthawks) will be leaving behind a lot of good memories – like rallying from 17 down to defeat Notre Dame on its Senior Night; any of the wins over basketball archrival Masuk; and a grueling volleyball game against Cheshire that didn’t end until the scoreboard read 36-34.

“My sisters were such great athletes here,” said Christie, “all I wanted was to make a name for myself.”

She did that – and then some – and now the future is here.