Laurie Zendron Tresky

This is the fourth in a series of six articles profiling the 2017 Knoch High School Sports Hall of Fame inductees.JEFFERSON TWP — Winning and breaking barriers defined Laurie Zendron Tresky's athletic career at Knoch High School.The 1982 graduate was a key member of the Knights' 1981 volleyball team that won the section championship. She also ran a leg of the 4x800 and 4x400 relay teams that set school-record times.Now she's running straight into the Knoch High School Sports Hall of Fame. Tresky will be one of six new inductees during a ceremony Friday night, prior to the Knight's home football game against West Mifflin.“This is quite an honor. When they called to tell me, I was in shock,” Tresky said. “I am extremely humbled and thankful. I don't even know who nominated me, but I'd love to find out.”Tresky was a three-sport athlete at Knoch, also playing basketball.“I was a forward who could jump pretty high,” she said. “I wasn't very tall, though. I played for fun. It was a way to keep in shape.”Tresky said she was attracted to sports through her father and her older sister, Lisa, who played volleyball and basketball at Knoch.A setter and a hitter in volleyball, Tresky participated in track and field for two years. She competed in the high, triple and long jumps her first year before joining the relay units the following year.“The four of us just jelled together,” she said.Beth Bowne, Tammie Kelly, Darcy Peters and Tresky ran a school-record 4 minutes and six seconds in the 4x400 and won the WPIAL title. Tresky's 4x800 quartet ran a 10:01, setting another school mark, and placed third in the WPIAL meet.“Our records stuck around for a while, but they've since been broken,” Tresky said.She went on to Gannon University and extended her volleyball career. Tresky served as a co-captain on the Golden Knights' women's volleyball team her final two seasons and was named team MVP both years.“My older brother Rick went to Gannon and I love Erie,” Tresky said. “Our volleyball team wasn't very good when I got there. I started as a freshman, which kind of shows that.“We only won a few games that first year, but I was part of a core of girls that played together pretty much all the way through.“We were 24-6 my senior year. The program went on to bigger accomplishments after we graduated, but I like to think we helped build that thing,” she added.Tresky earned Academic All-American in her final season, carrying a 3.8 grade point average as a mental health counseling major.Tresky went on to a career as a school counselor in the South Butler School District. Her and her husband Gary have two sons, Caleb, 24, and Noah, 21. Noah Tresky played basketball at Mars and is now a junior at James Madison University.Caleb Tresky is a school teacher in Maryland.