Big Walnut girls soccer celebrates season of improvement

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Fol­low­ing a dis­ap­point­ing 2011 cam­paign that saw the Golden Eagles win only four games, Big Walnut’s girls soc­cer squad improved six games in the win col­umn to fin­ish 2012 with a 10–8-0 record for vet­eran coach Jim Reardon.

It was a com­plete team effort as five seniors, Bethany Bogantz, Jessie Wenger, Mag­gie Fer­gu­son, Andrea Lowe and Ash­ley Meade; three juniors, Sky­lar Fleak, Maria Sturte­vant and Bai­ley Arm­strong; and one sopho­more, Jen­nie Wenger, made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the Golden Eagles’ success.

The team was hon­ored at the Wednes­day, Novem­ber 7, Girls Soc­cer Awards Ban­quet held at Sun­bury United Methodist Church where post­sea­son awards and hon­ors were pre­sented by Rear­don and his staff.

Jessie Wenger was awarded the Most Valu­able Player and Best Mid­fielder awards; Fer­gu­son the Most Improved Player Award; Lowe the Coaches Award; and Bogantz the Golden Eagle Award which goes to a senior based on Char­ac­ter (40 per­cent), Schol­ar­ship (30 per­cent, 3.00 or higher GPA-4.149) and Ath­letic Abil­ity (30 percent).

Fleak was pre­sented with the Best Offen­sive Player Award and Sturte­vant the Rookie of the Year Award with Arm­strong shar­ing the Best Mid­fielder Award with Jessie Wenger.

Jen­nie Wenger was the recip­i­ent of the Best Defen­sive Player Award.

Big Wal­nut climbed a notch in the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion stand­ings, fin­ish­ing fourth behind New Albany (6–0-0), Olen­tangy (4–2-0) and Olen­tangy Orange (3–1-2) with a 3–3-0 record.

Four Golden Eagles earned All-OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion recog­ni­tion led by Fleak and Jen­nie Wenger who were named to the First Team. Jessie Wenger was selected to the Sec­ond Team while Fer­gu­son was named Spe­cial Men­tion and Ash­ley Meade Hon­or­able Men­tion. Fleak (First Team), Jen­nie Wenger (Sec­ond Team) and Jessie Wenger (Third Team) were also named to the Divi­sion II All-Central Dis­trict Team.

Rear­don, who was assisted by junior var­sity coach Melissa Max­son and vol­un­teer coaches Drew Pitzer and Sarah Uhlen­brock, pre­sented 22 var­sity let­ters to mem­bers of his Golden Eagle squad.

Eight seniors let­tered, led by Jessie Wenger who was pre­sented with her Var­sity Blan­ket as a four-year let­ter win­ner. Bogantz earned her third let­ter, Saman­tha Herbst her sec­ond let­ter and Jor­dan Lyle, Ash­ley Meade, Jes­sica Sanders, Fer­gu­son and Lowe their first let­ter. Bogantz and Jessie Wenger each received their Senior Plaque.

Ten juniors, led by Haley Lescin­sky, Elyse Schn­abel, Arm­strong and Fleak who received their third let­ter, also let­tered, includ­ing second-year recip­i­ents Shel­bie Borchers, Macken­zie Pike and Leah Shaw; and first-year recip­i­ents Hay­ley Apple, Han­nah Shry­ock and Sturtevant,

Three sopho­mores earned their sec­ond let­ter, includ­ing Makenna Ham­mond, Abby Tabor and Jen­nie Wenger. Fresh­man Colleen White was the recip­i­ent of her first var­sity letter.

Junior var­sity awards were pre­sented to sopho­mores Alexan­dra Augh­en­baugh, Sarah Bickel, Mor­gan Clark, Han­nah Gol­li­hugh, Jamie Hatem, Grace Huff­man, Avery Kerns and Megan Pierce as well as to fresh­men Sara Althauser, Kali Cross­land, Haley Fer­gu­son, Mary Hoff­man, Lau­ren Huff­man, Ellie Jin­dra, Alli­son Lear, Erin Lescin­sky, Anna Mackey, Codie Muth, Kayle Tan­ner and Madi­son Walzak.

Nine­teen Golden Eagles were rec­og­nized as Big Wal­nut Scholar Ath­letes (Var­sity Let­ter Win­ner, 3.20 Grade Point Aver­age), includ­ing Apple, Arm­strong, Bogantz, Fer­gu­son, Ham­mond, Herbst, Haley Lescin­sky, Lowe, Lyle, Meade, Pike, Sanders, Schn­abel, Shaw, Shry­ock, Sturte­vant, Tabor, Jen­nie Wenger and Jessie Wenger.

Meade also received recog­ni­tion as an Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Scholar Ath­letes (Senior, 3.50 GPA).

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.