Receiving special awards at Crothersville’s spring athletic awards program were, front from left, Kendall Berry, Grace Walker, Zoey Prince and Pearl Shirley, and back from left, Dirk Crater, Devin Morgan, Lucas Hilton, Blake Robinson and Beau Napier.
Arv Koontz | The Tribune
CROTHERSVILLE — Seniors Pearl Shirley and Andrew Stainbrook were the recipients of special awards at the Crothersville Junior-Senior High School spring athletic awards program held last week.
Shirley received the Principal and Coaches Award for playing three years of volleyball and participating one year in track and field.
Stainbrook was named the Athletic Council’s Most Outstanding Senior Athlete. He ran cross-country for three years and played varsity basketball for one year, JV basketball for one year and golf for two years.
Jacob Dunn, the high school athletic director who also was the boys golf coach this spring, announced Stainbrook would receive the medalist and most improved golf awards.
The school fielded a softball team this spring after a five-year absence. Greg Jones coached the Tigers, who were unable to win any of their 13 games and were forced to forfeit their sectional game because of a shortage of players due to injuries.
Jones presented the batting award to Kendall Berry (.309), the RBI award to Grace Walker (9 RBI) and the pitching award to Dacie Hughes, and he named Zoey Prince as the most improved player and Kiley Ferrell as the recipient of the mental attitude award.
Boys varsity track and field coach Matt Otte announced Blake Robinson as winner of the mental attitude award, Corey Reynolds as the most outstanding field events performer and Dirk Crater as recipient of the most improved and most outstanding runner awards.
Crater broke the school 3200 record that was held by James Helton since 1985. Crater ran 10:11.29 in the sectional to qualify for the regional, where he broke the record again with a time of 10:07.54.
Hali Burton received the mental attitude and most improved awards for the girls track and field team. Zoe Bowman was named the outstanding runner, and Morgan Womack received the most outstanding field events award.
Lucas Hilton was named the most outstanding baseball player. He tied the single-season record for hits in a season with 30 and broke the season mark for stolen bases with 42.
He received the hitting award for batting .517 this spring and received the pitching award for pitching 43.1 innings, striking out 92 batters and posting an ERA of 4.68. He also received the defensive award for having a .913 defensive percentage.
Plus, he was named Player of the Week for week four of the season.
Hilton and Crater were named to the all-Shawe Memorial Sectional team. Hilton batted 2-for-3 and had seven strikeouts pitching, and Crater went 2-for-3 with two RBI and scored one run.
Beau Napier received the mental attitude award. He played several positions this spring and was second on the team in ERA.
Devin Morgan was named the most improved player. He batted .114 last year and raised his average to .420 this season.
The junior high track and field awards also were presented with Winter Sporleder presenting the girls awards and Noah Hoskins presenting the boys awards.
Hoskins also announced the boys won the Southern Athletic Conference middle school track and field meet. He said that is the first time Crothersville had won the middle school conference meet since 2014 when he was on the team. He had five eighth-graders and four seventh-graders. Koby Davis qualified for the middle school state track and field meet in the 800.
Junior high track awards
Tiger mental attitude: Jazlin Gibson (girls), Brayden Heath (boys)
Outstanding runner: Gibson (girls), Koby Davis (boys)
Outstanding field events: Emma Kelly (girls), Triston Tatlock (boys)
Most improved: Kelly (girls), Gage Howard (boys)