Ryan Williams is skating through Huntington High School. Well, maybe that’s a little too glib. The junior works very hard for the excellent grades he earns. But he really is a good skater. The teenager is one of the top young high school hockey players in New York and he’s hoping to play in college, too.
Mr. Williams is nearing completion of another great year of school. He’s been studying Advanced Placement Chemistry, AP US History, AP English Language and Composition, Pre-Calculus honors, Spanish IV honors and Engineering.
Huntington junior Ryan Williams.
The teenager has been inducted into Huntington’s National Honor Society chapter as well as the high school’s Math, Science, English and Spanish Honor Societies. He’s dabbled in robotics and participated in Relay For Life.
Watching Mr. Williams glide around the ice on his skates is seeing beauty in motion. He makes it all seem so effortless. He can race down the ice and stop his momentum on a dime and just like that, be off again with incredible speed. He hits hard and his shots are like rockets.
“Growing up, I played Little League Baseball and club and middle school lacrosse, but my real passion is ice hockey,” Mr. Williams said. “I started playing travel hockey when I was eight years old and with the Northport-Huntington high school team since I was in seventh grade. This year our high school team made it to the playoffs, but got knocked out in double overtime to the eventual county champs.”
Mr. Williams was able to take the ice for the playoffs despite an ankle injury that sidelined him for several months. He finished the season with the most overall points in the league.
“My travel team finished undefeated and in first place in the Long Island Amateur Hockey League and we competed in the state championships in Buffalo,” Mr. Williams said. “I am hoping to play club hockey in college so that I can concentrate on my education and enjoy other activities that college has to offer. A few college hockey coaches have come watch me play and have invited me to visit their school and attend a practice with the team in the fall. I am really looking forward to that.”
Mr. Williams is interested in attending Cornell University. His sister, Lyndsey is a Cornell graduate and another sister, Emily is currently attending the Ivy League school. He has also visited and liked Syracuse University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I plan to visit more schools over the summer,” he said. “I would like to study engineering; possibly chemical engineering.”
The teenager has hit it off with many faculty members. “Ms. [Kristina] Morell, Mr. [Edward] Florea, Mr. [Craig] McKee, Mrs. [Victoria] Lombardi and Mr. [David] Moriarty, are all awesome teachers,” Mr. Williams said. “They all make class interesting and go out of their way to help the students. I really enjoyed the experiments in Mr. Florea’s class, especially when I got to ignite a soap bubble in my hand that had a combustible gas inside. Fortunately we didn’t set off the fire alarm.”
Mr. Williams’ all-time favorite teacher is Jordan Schessler. “She was my geometry teacher in ninth grade and she made math interesting so much so that I will be her student intern next year,” he said. “I hope to be able to help her students excel in math.”
The junior does a lot of traveling for hockey. “I have been all around the northeastern states as well as Minnesota and Canada,” Mr. Williams said. “I have traveled with my family to Florida, Bahamas, California, Puerto Rico, Tennessee and last summer we went to Ireland. We had such a great time. We traveled around the entire island. My favorite part was Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. We will be going on another family trip this summer but we haven’t decided where yet.”
Mr. Williams is an intellectually sharp, articulate and determined young man with a great sense of humor. He’s an excellent competitor and possesses a work ethic second to none.
“Huntington UFSD has provided me with a lot of opportunities,” Mr. Williams said. “I have taken a lot of challenging classes and some interesting electives.”
