 | ||
MOVING ON: The Valley Chronicle’s 2013 female athlete of the year, Shelbi Skinner, will attend UCLA next year where she hopes to walk on the womens’ water polo team and study to become a veterinarian. photo by Contributed Images. | ||
June 10, 2013
To say that sports have played a large role in the life of Hemet High graduate Shelbi Skinner would be an understatement.Beginning at the age of four, Shelbi was already a multisport athlete participating in Valley-Wide Park and Recreation basketball, soccer, tennis, and softball.
"Sports are just what I have always done," she said. "I have never known anything else."
Shelbi's love for sports and her undeniable success has earned her the 2013 Valley Chronicle female athlete of the year.
While Shelbi tried just about every sport in her youth, it wasn't until middle school that she discovered the sport she was passionate about.
 | ||
"It's just such a fun sport," she said. "All the other sports I had played were so physical. Volleyball is physical in a different way. It is such a team sport and it is all about working together. You can't do it all on your own."
And for Shelbi, the decision to stick with volleyball ended up being a good one. She was a member of the three-time CIF championship Hemet High volleyball team – a program that she said she felt privileged to be a part of.
"To be a part of three CIF championships was amazing. From day one, we always knew that the goal was taking it all and we went after it," she said.
Aside from the team's success, Shelbi also experienced individual success in volleyball. She was a three-time scholar athlete and earned all-league honors for two years. She was also named to the all-county team her senior year.
 | ||
Shelbi did not begin playing water polo until her sophomore year of high school. She had played soccer her freshmen year, but decided she wanted to try her hand in something else.
Volleyball season had gone well into November her sophomore year as the team won CIF, so Shelbi missed the beginning of water polo season. Her first day, she was thrown into a game with no previous practice or training. During that game, she scored the first goal. Before she knew it, she was on the varsity water polo squad.
"Water polo is kind of like soccer and basketball combined, but in the water. I understood how the game worked, I just wasn't in swimming shape," Shelbi said. "But once I started, I just loved it."
This water polo season proved to be the most memorable of all for Shelbi. After taking first place in the Mountain Pass League and having the best season to date, the lady Bulldogs headed into playoffs.
"I wasn't sure how my team was going to react heading into CIF. The girls had never been there before. In volleyball, we always knew what the goal was. In water polo, it was a whole new thing," Shelbi said. "Winning CIF is a feeling you never forget and I am so glad they proved they wanted it as bad as I did by going out and winning it."
Individually in water polo, Shelbi was again a three-time scholar athlete. She was named to the all-league team for three years, all-county for two years, all-Inland Empire her senior year, and first-team all-CIF her senior year. She was also named the CIF player of the year this season.
Swim was another area of success for Shelbi who was a three-time scholar athlete, a two-time all-league member, and a member of the Mountain Pass League championship team last year.
Shelbi, who was a member of four of the five female CIF championship teams in Hemet High School's history, is also debatably the most decorated Bulldog athlete of all time.
"It has been such an honor to be a part of all of this," she said. "I worked so hard to get here and so did each of the teams I was on."
Next year, Shelbi will attend UCLA and attempt to walk on the school's water polo team. If she is unable to make the team, she will play club water polo and club volleyball.
"I am going to miss the competitiveness," Shelbi said. "I will miss all of those long days I used to dread and being on a team where you all truly love one another. I can't imagine not playing sports at all."
Shelbi said she is going into college as an undeclared major, but that she hopes to become a veterinarian. She said she has always loved math and science and wants to study some type of medicine.
http://www.thevalleychronicle.com/Articles-Sports-c-2013-06-10-84080.113122-Hemet-athletes-success-makes-history.html
Source: www.thevalleychronicle.com