BW 2012 OCC Capital Division volleyball champs honored

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

After a one-year absence, Ron Lehman’s Golden Eagles cel­e­brated their 2012 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vol­ley­ball cham­pi­onship at the annual Big Wal­nut vol­ley­ball awards ban­quet held last Wednes­day (Novem­ber 7) in the High School Media Center.

Big Wal­nut, after falling short of cap­tur­ing the 2011 OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion cham­pi­onship, came back with one goal in mind in 2012 – return the tro­phy to Big Wal­nut High School.

And the Golden Eagles did just that, clinch­ing the 2012 crown title in their final match of the con­fer­ence sea­son, hand­ing vis­it­ing Franklin Heights a three-game 25–11, 25–7, 25–9 deci­sion to fin­ish OCC play with a 13–1 record to edge Delaware County rival Olen­tangy (12–2) for the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion crown. Big Wal­nut fin­ished the sea­son with a 17–7 record.

It was Big Walnut’s 11th con­fer­ence crown in the past 13 seasons.

It was the Year of the Senior for Lehman’s 23rd Golden Eagle edi­tion as four seniors swept four of the five major post­sea­son awards. Natalie Chat­ter­ton was selected as the Most Valu­able Player, Alexis New­man as the Best Defen­sive Player, and Kyle Williams for the Coaches Award.

Last, but not least, Abby Painter was pre­sented with the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award which goes to a senior based on Char­ac­ter (40 per­cent), Schol­ar­ship (30 per­cent, 3.00 or higher GPA-4.295) and Ath­letic Abil­ity (30 percent).

Junior Kalynn Bow­mar rounded out the major award win­ners as the recip­i­ent of the Most Improved Player Award.

On the OCC front, Big Wal­nut had five play­ers voted to the All-OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion team led by Chat­ter­ton who named the Player of the Year in the Divi­sion. She was joined by Painter as a First Team selec­tion. Junior Mor­gan Alley joined New­man on the Sec­ond Team while Bow­mar was an Hon­or­able Men­tion Selec­tion. Lehman was voted the OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion Coach of the Year.

Lehman, assisted by staff mem­bers Matt Schoonover, Sum­mer Hale and Chris Podraza, awarded 10 var­sity let­ters to mem­bers of the cham­pi­onship squad. Eight mem­bers of the Golden Eagle team earned their sec­ond var­sity let­ter, led by BW’s four seniors includ­ing Chat­ter­ton, who also received her Senior Plaque, New­man, Painter and Williams. Junior Kayla Walaszek joined class­mates Alley and Bow­mar as two-year let­ter­win­ners along with sopho­more Claire Chat­ter­ton. First-year let­ter­win­ners rec­og­nized were junior Brooke Hat­field and sopho­more Krista Schmidt.

Junior Var­sity awards were pre­sented to junior Kather­ine von Hollen as well as to sopho­mores Erika Boehm, Natalie Can­nell, Helen Hardy, Erin O’Daniel, Rachel O’Morrow, Avery Pasch, Cas­sidy Walaszek and Jireh White.

Fresh­man numer­als were awarded to Macken­zie Dore, Saman­tha Grum­ney, Saman­tha Hard, Abi­gael Kitchen, Naomi Myers, Alexis Rowe, Tiffany Sois­son and Kylie Stickrath.

Seven mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut team were rec­og­nized as Big Wal­nut Scholar Ath­letes (Var­sity Let­ter Win­ner, 3.20 Grade Point Aver­age). Hon­ored were Bow­mar, C. Chat­ter­ton, N. Chat­ter­ton, New­man, Painter, Schmidt and Williams.

Painter was the recip­i­ent of an OCC Scholar Ath­lete Award (Senior, 3.50 GPA).

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.