The Seymour baseball team held its awards program in the school’s auditorium Wednesday night to put a bow on the Owls’ successful 2022 season.

Seymour went 18-10 overall, which is the most wins the program has had since 2012.

Head coach Jeremy Richey and his staff had numerous honors and awards to hand out to the roster, starting with the Victory Field Challenge, a preseason competition that consists of doing CrossFit workouts, selling baseball cards and other activities.

Richey felt it was the best and most competitive Victory Field Challenge they’ve ever had, and the winning team consisted of Braxton Parker, Noah Wineinger, Michael Wright, Treyton McCormick and coach Brad Thompson.

Next was the scholar athlete award, which went to Andrew Levine for having a 4.8 GPA and class rank of 25 out of 309.

That wasn’t the only award Levine got, either. He also received the Doug Hill Memorial Leadership Award. Hill was a 1970 graduate, and the award was named after him because he didn’t need to be the best, fastest or strongest player, but he was the leader on the team that everyone liked and trusted. That was Levine for the Owls this season.

The coaches award went to seniors Will Cottrill and Jounes Rodriguez.

There were five Golden Glove winners for Seymour, meaning the athlete had to have a fielding percentage of .970 or better.

Aiden Darlage had a .972 fielding percentage with 161 putouts and 14 assists, Will Gray had a .988 fielding percentage with 149 putouts and 22 assists, Vince Wilson had a 1.000 fielding percentage with 58 putouts and four assists, Jack Pennington had a 1.000 fielding percentage with 19 putouts and McCormick had a 1.000 fielding percentage with 19 putouts and one assist.

There were four Owls who belonged to the .500 batting club this season, and they were Wilson at .540, Darlage at .627, Charlie Longmeier at .640 and Bret Perry at .681. Perry’s .681 gave him the quality at-bats title for the season.

Perry and Longmeier also were co-hitters of the year for Seymour since their batting statistics were so similar. Perry had a .448 batting average with 32 runs, 39 hits, six doubles, three triples and 20 RBI, while Longmeier had a .429 batting average with 32 runs, 36 hits, eight doubles, six triples and 26 RBI.

Pitcher of the year was awarded to Aden Burnside, who had a 6-2 record across 60.33 innings pitched this year. He had an ERA of 2.55 with 66 strikeouts and just 25 walks. This also was the second straight year where Burnside was voted on as the team’s most valuable player.

Burnside, Longmeier and Perry were all named to the Hoosier Hills Conference first team, and Burnside also earned an all-district distinction.

Seymour graduates four big-time contributors in seniors Burnside, Cottrill, Levine and Rodriguez. But the Owls also return a lot of talent, and Richey’s final message for the team was encouraging them to hit the weight room over the summer because that’s how you get better before next spring rolls around.