Team IMPACT is an organization that helps children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses. It provides a safe and supportive environment for the child and their family and gives them a chance to connect with a college sports team and local campus communities.

The more she heard about the great work Team IMPACT is doing with college athletics, McKenna wanted to elevate ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ’s involvement with the organization.

This past summer, McKenna joined Team IMPACT’s fellowship program, a role in which she spreads awareness, organizes games and gets teams to sign up and apply to be matched with a kid. As part of the program, she was also able to go to Boston with other student-athlete fellows.

“They’re just a really great organization,” McKenna said. “It’s good to be a part of it.”

As a Team IMPACT fellow, McKenna is also assigned tasks that she fulfills each month. In October, McKenna organized a virtual 5K for the ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ women’s lacrosse team to raise money for Team IMPACT, in addition to the main goal of raising awareness for the organization.

“Throughout the year, it’s always just how can I get more teams involved,” McKenna said. “Because once more teams get involved down here, it’s easier to coordinate Team IMPACT events.”

As she continues to raise awareness for the organization on-campus, McKenna recently matched Ridge Riley of Burlington with ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ’s men’s golf team.

“My Team IMPACT representative reached out to me and said there is a kid in Burlington that’s really interested in men’s golf, do you think they would be interested?” McKenna said. “I reached out to the team, and they were totally on board, applied and got started right away with him this fall. They’ve been awesome with him.”

As a Team IMPACT fellow, McKenna reached out to the men’s golf team to try to make a match. That’s where Matthew Doyle came into play. Doyle, a junior on the men’s golf team, became McKenna’s point of contact and the person who helped her match Riley with the team.

“She reached out to me to see if our team would be open to that,” Doyle said. “I thought it was a great idea. I brought it up to my coach and he agreed with me that it would be great for everyone.”

Doyle had not heard of Team IMPACT before McKenna reached out, but was thrilled to be able to help out when he learned about the organization.

“It’s just great, everything that they do,” Doyle said. “All of these kids are just so happy to be there. It feels good to help out.”

Doyle said the men’s golf team loves having Riley around the team and that it has been a great experience for everyone involved. At ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ’s home tournament in October, Riley was an honorary member of the Phoenix, as he and his family were on site for both days. After the tournament, Riley was presented a flag with signatures from every player in the field who competed and partook in ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ’s trophy photos after winning the event.

While men’s golf is currently the only team matched with a Team IMPACT kid, Doyle hopes other teams are able to get matched with with a kid at some point.

“I think every team at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ should do it,” Doyle said. “It just creates such a good environment.”

While the women’s lacrosse team is still waiting to be matched with a kid, McKenna is hopeful to get every team at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ matched with someone.

“That’s the goal, that I would match every team down here before I leave within the next year and a half,” McKenna said. “It’s kind of a big goal, but it would be great to do.”

McKenna said since matching men’s golf with Riley, the women’s track and field team has put in an application to be matched with a kid, in addition to lacrosse currently going through the process.

“I would love it if our team got a match just because we’ve been in the application waiting process for a while,” McKenna said. “I would be really excited if [track] got a match this year too.”

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‘Rising Phoenix’ is a new student-led initiative to cover ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department’s various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix Ìý²¹²Ô»å . Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Jacob Kisamore at jkisamore@elon.edu.

Born and raised in Leon, Mexico, the Reding sisters grew up on the international tennis circuit, with college tennis far from their minds. Both sisters grew up traveling around the world playing tennis while attending an online school, with education a priority second to their tennis careers.

It wasn’t until Tim Wilkinson, a mutual friend of ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ women’s tennis head coach Elizabeth Anderson, told Anderson about Lizette (the older of the sisters) as a possible fit at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ that the Redings considered college tennis as an option.

“He called me about Lizette and he said he thought she would be a really nice fit at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ,” Anderson said. “Everything just went so perfectly and she was just an immediate great fit.”

Lizette, who played on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) circuit prior to ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ, never planned on attending college in the United States until Wilkinson reached out to her.

“I didn’t know much about college back in Mexico, so that was not a part of my plans for my future,” Lizette said. “But then [Wilkinson] reached out to me. He was like, ‘Hey, I saw you have a really good ranking, you could try to potentially get into college and play for a team.'”

After working with Wilkinson on creating a website and a recruiting profile for her, they started reaching out to colleges in America, and ended up getting in touch with Anderson.

Anderson said that Lizette fell in love with the school and the team right away after her visit.

“She came and visited actually right before the COVID shutdown,” Anderson said. “We were fortunate to get that visit in.”

Two years later, the recruiting process for another player with the last name Reding started all over again for Anderson, only this time, it was for Lizette’s younger sister, Mariana.

“Mariana had expressed a lot of interest in ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ,” Anderson said. “I know that she looked at a lot of other schools too and was very highly recruited as well. I think she liked the opportunity to play with her sister.”

Lizette found the transition to school from online school in Mexico to in-person learning at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ was difficult at first, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I freaked out,” Lizette said. “I was like, oh my god, what am I going to do with in-class exams or with the language… I had the grammar and the writing part and all of that, but then speaking is really hard, and then listening to English all day long, it was exhausting those first two months.”

This year, Lizette, a senior co-captain on the team, has helped Mariana, a first-year student, adjust to college life in the U.S. drawing from her own experience.

“It was easier for me because she was already here,” Mariana said. “I already knew how college works. [Lizette] really had no idea when she first got in. She actually helped me a lot, and I’m very grateful for that.”

In addition to helping her with the recruitment process, Lizette helped Mariana by giving her advice on what she needed at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ and how to get from place to place off the court.

“My first day, I was going to the mailroom without anything and I’ll be like, yeah, I’m just Mariana,” Mariana said. “And she’s like, ‘No, you need your Phoenix card!’ She actually told me how to do it.”

On the court, however, that sisterly love is put to the side momentarily during practices. The Redings are extremely competitive against one another.

“Sometimes I chuckle when I see them play against each other because you see a little sister rivalry come out,” Anderson said. “But that’s kind of fun to see as well. It’s always in good fun and good competition.”

When talking about how they push each other on and off the court, the sisters looked at each other and laughed while talking about their competitiveness.

“I’m a really competitive person, and when it comes to my sister, it’s even more competitive,” Lizette said. “We push ourselves really, really hard, but it’s also very fun to have my sister on the team.”

Mariana shared the same sentiment as Lizette and traces their competitive spirit to when they were kids. It’s a sense of competition that is not limited to tennis.

“We were very competitive since we were little,” Mariana said. “We also have a younger brother and we were all very competitive between us. Whether we’re playing video games or absolutely everything we do, we compete. I think having my sister here actually pushes me.”

Off the court, the sisters take their academics very seriously and are grateful to have the chance to attend college in the U.S. Combined with their strong work ethic on the court, Anderson says they have been an incredible fit with the women’s tennis team at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ.

“They really embody what we want to be as a team. They uphold our team values very well. They work hard, they give 100% every day and they’re very dedicated to the team.” Anderson said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a day that I’ve come to practice that Mariana hasn’t been smiling, and Lizette is the same way. Lizette is extremely genuine and is always setting such a great example.”

Lizette, Mariana and Anderson all credit the Redings’ parents for helping them reach this level.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with their parents,” Anderson said. “They’ve always been extremely supportive of our team and I’m so grateful for that. It’s exciting to be able to work with them for a long period of time now that we have Mariana too.”

Lizette and Mariana are both grateful for how much their parents sacrificed for them and mentioned how much their support means.

“My parents are the most supportive people for us,” Lizette said. “I remember when I started to play this sport when I was nine, I talked to my dad and I was like, I really want to do this. I really want to be good at tennis, and be the best in Mexico, and then try to be the best in the world. And he didn’t blink twice. My dad took me to all the cities in Mexico and then he took us away from Mexico to play in the US, Central America, South America and Europe, and that was just because my parents were so supportive.”

The Redings’ father used to work with their mother, but quit his job so he could be with Lizette and Mariana and their brother Juan full-time. As a result, he was always at the courts with both sisters and traveled to all their tennis tournaments with them.

“He made a lot of sacrifices to get us here,” Mariana said. “He was with us trying to see what he could do to improve our tennis. I love my parents.”

Now, as the sisters look ahead to the spring, which will be Lizette’s last season at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ and Mariana’s first, they are thrilled to be able to play on the same team.

“It’s just super nice to have someone looking at you on the court while you’re playing, and this person knows where you’re coming from and knows all your process,” Lizette said. “She [Mariana] has seen me through my highest and lowest, which I feel like it’s crucial to understand what’s going on with me on the court.”

“She keeps me up all the time and makes me want to play better,” Lizette said. “I’m just so happy for [Mariana] to be here, it’s super nice to have [Mariana] here.”

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‘Rising Phoenix’ is a new student-led initiative to cover ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department’s various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix Ìý²¹²Ô»å . Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Jacob Kisamore at jkisamore@elon.edu.