Golden Eagles boys track team excited to compete in 2013

From the “Year of The Senior” in 2012 when Big Wal­nut posted 60–33 record en route to top 10 fin­ishes in the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion and the Divi­sion I Cen­tral Dis­trict Cham­pi­onship, Eric Myers’ youth­ful Golden Eagles are excited and eager to com­pete in 2013.

While Golden Eagles grad­u­ated 10 seniors off last season’s squad that placed sixth in the OCC Cap­i­tal and eighth in the they Dis­trict, they return 14 let­ter men, includ­ing six seniors, three juniors and five sopho­mores to go with 14 new­com­ers to lead Myers’ sixth sea­son as head coach.

Golden Eagle seniors take spotlight in girls basketball

It was a night for seniors Emily Chucta, Stephanie Adkins and Saman­tha Klinedinst who swept three of the top five awards at the Big Wal­nut Girls Bas­ket­ball Awards Ban­quet held Wednes­day, March 13, in the BWHS Band Room.

Junior Sky­lar Fleak, who was rec­og­nized as the Golden Eagles’ Most Valu­able Player for the 2012–13 cam­paign, led the post­sea­son pre­sen­ta­tions from head coach Bob Scott. In turn, Chucta received the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, Adkins the Out­stand­ing Defen­sive Player Award and Klinedinst the Coaches Award. Junior Sara Petty com­pleted the pre­sen­ta­tions as the season’s Most Improved Player.

Ben Stefaniak, Marsch take top boys swimming awards

Senior Ben­jamin Ste­fa­niak, the recip­i­ent of the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, and junior Carter Marsch, who earned the High Point Award, cap­tured the two top awards for the 2012–13 Big Wal­nut Boys Swim­ming sea­son at the season-ending awards ban­quet held March 13 at the high school.

Join­ing Ste­fa­niak and Marsch on the podium were two fresh­man, Bret Stacy who was pre­sented with the Most Improved Swim­mer Award and Michael Stan­wick who received the Coaches Award.

Newman, Michelle Stefaniak win top honors in girls swimming

Each class was rep­re­sented when the spe­cial post­sea­son awards were pre­sented by head coach Andy Chat­ter­ton at the Big Wal­nut Girls Swim­ming and Div­ing Ban­quet held March 13 at the high school.

Senior Alexis New­man was awarded the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, junior Michelle Ste­fa­niak the High Point Award, sopho­more Mary­Beth Med­ley the Most Improved Swim­mer Award and fresh­man Ali­son Hager the Coaches Award.

Golden Eagle girls fourth at State Indoor Track Meet

It was a day that Big Walnut’s Olivia Small will never forget …

Small set school records in win­ning both the triple jump and long jump at the 2013 OATCCC Indoor Track and Field State Cham­pi­onship held Sat­ur­day at the Uni­ver­sity of Akron. Small defended her state long jump title with a leap of 18 feet, 8.25 inches, the sec­ond longest long jump in State indoor his­tory, and cap­tured the triple jump with a leap of 37 feet, 3 inches, the sec­ond longest triple jump in State indoor history.

“Olivia con­tin­ues to prove that she is one of the best jumpers in the state, and has the poten­tial to be one of the best jumpers in state his­tory,” Big Wal­nut head coach Joe Evener said of Small who won the triple jump with a 2-foot mar­gin and the long jump with a 1-foot mar­gin. “Win­ning the long jump for the sec­ond year in a row, win­ning the triple jump while smash­ing both of her own school records and record­ing the sec­ond longest jump in both long jump and triple jump all on the same day is an incred­i­ble feat. To think what she is capa­ble of accom­plish­ing is just astounding.”

Shaheen, Laughman take top team awards in boys basketball

A young Big Wal­nut bas­ket­ball squad, with a 30-man ros­ter which included 22 under­class­men with nine sopho­mores and 13 fresh­man, was hon­ored at the annual Golden Eagle bas­ket­ball Awards Ban­quet held held Wednes­day, March 13, in the high school auditorium.

Adam Sha­heen and Zach Laugh­man, the lone two seniors on Eric Myers’ squad, con­cluded their careers with post­sea­son hon­ors. Sha­heen, who set sin­gle game career marks with 44 points and 20 rebounds in the Golden Eagles’ 76–75 over­time upset of ninth-seeded Lick­ing Heights in the Divi­sion II Sec­tional semi­fi­nals, and Laugh­man were respec­tive recip­i­ents of the Most Valu­able Player and Golden Eagle awards.

Sha­heen led Big Wal­nut with an aver­age of 18.3 points per game scor­ing 439 points in 24 games, rank­ing third in Delaware County in scor­ing. His 44 points in post­sea­son play was the single-game high in the county. Laugh­man aver­aged 9.3 points per game, an aver­age that included a team-high 36 three-point goals.

Eisnnicher tapped BW’s Most Valuable in wrestling

Junior Alec Eisnnicher, who rep­re­sented the Golden Eagles in the 170-pound weight class at the OHSAA Divi­sion II State Wrestling Tour­na­ment, was rec­og­nized with the Most Valu­able Wrestler Award the Big Wal­nut Wrestling Awards Ban­quet held Sun­day, March 10 at the high school.

Eisnnicher, who posted a 31–7 record, enjoyed a solid junior cam­paign by mak­ing his sec­ond straight appear­ance in the Cen­tral Dis­trict Tour­na­ment where he advanced to the State as a Dis­trict run­nerup. He earned First Team hon­ors in the Sec­tion­als as well as the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion championships.

Join­ing Eisnnicher at the podium were 113-pound sopho­more Donny Did­ion, 138-pound junior Rod­ney Mar­tin and 152-pound junior Austin Carr. Did­ion, who placed third in both the Sec­tion­als and OCCs, was the recip­i­ent of the Hard­est Worker Award. Carr, who placed third in the OCCs and fourth in the Sec­tion­als, earned the Most Improved Wrestler Award. Mar­tin, who placed sec­ond in the Sec­tion­als and third in the OCCs, was pre­sented with the Coaches Award. Sopho­more Michael Nash was selected for the program’s Heart and Soul Award.

BW girls claim fifth District indoor track title

The Golden Eagles’ girls indoor track team con­tin­ues to raise the bar.

Big Wal­nut claimed its fifth Cen­tral Dis­trict Indoor Track cham­pi­onship and its third straight by out­dis­tanc­ing the 27-team field by 33 points Sat­ur­day at the Uni­ver­sity of Otter­bein. The Golden Eagles pre­vi­ously won Dis­trict titles in 1996, 2000, 2011 and 2012 before mak­ing it three in a row on Sat­ur­day in Westerville.

Joe Evener’s Golden Eagles scored 89 points to out­dis­tance run­nerup Gahanna Lin­coln which fin­ished sec­ond with 56 points. Round­ing out the top ten were Pick­er­ing­ton Cen­tral, third with 48.50 points, fol­lowed by Reynolds­burg (46), Bishop Hart­ley (37), Watkins Memo­r­ial (31), West­er­ville North (28), Hamil­ton Town­ship (25.33), Wayne (25) and Hilliard Bradley (24).