Crothersville High School athletes receiving special awards at the volleyball and cross country awards program were, front from left, Brooklyn Bottorff, Jazlin Gibson, Zoey Prince, Elayna Ord, Grace Smith and Hayden Pilgrim; back, Koby Davis, Dirk Crater, Brayden Heath and Kaleb Moeller.
Arv Koontz | The Tribune
CROTHERSVILLE — Brayden Heath and Elayna Ord received the Tiger Mental Attitude awards when the Crothersville volleyball and cross country teams were honored at an awards program in the school cafeteria Monday night.
Ord, a senior, also received the serving award and was named to the Indiana High School Volleyball Coaches Association Academic All-State Gold Division (3.75 GPA or higher) list.
Head volleyball coach Scott Sage also presented the passing award to Zoey Prince, the setting trophy to Grace Smith, the hitting award to Brooklyn Bottorff and the blocking award to Hayden Pilgrim and named Jazlin Gibson as the most improved player.
In presenting Gibson with her award, Sage said, “With a young team, I feel there was a lot of improvement from a lot of players.”
He said there was a lot of competition for the most improved award.
Sage coached a young team this fall, as there were only two seniors, Ord and Makenna Newberry, on the roster, and there weren’t any juniors, so he had to rely a lot on sophomores and freshmen.
Prince, Smith and Pilgrim are sophomores, and Bottorff and Gibson are freshmen.
The Tigers were 4-25 overall and 1-4 in the Southern Athletic Conference and lost to New Washington in the Medora Sectional.
Cross country coach Bryant Layman said he was surprised Heath ran cross country.
“He bought into it and decided to run next year,” he said. “Brayden has put in a lot of work. He ran his 450 miles.”
Layman added that Dirk Crater put the work in this season.
“He got up every morning at 5:30 and went out and ran. He wasn’t just a good runner for us. He was a great runner in the area,” Layman said.
Crater suffered an injury late in the season that prevented him from running in the sectional.
Layman said he encouraged his runners to run at least 450 miles over the summer, and some of them reached that goal and it showed up in their times.
“Our team got a little bit stronger, a little bit quicker. We were running really well,” he said.
The Tigers ran in a meet at Madison on Sept. 23, which was kind of a sectional preview.
“That day, if we had the sectional with our sectional team, we would have advanced,” he said. “Unfortunately, we had some injuries down the stretch that really kind of hurt us there.”
Koby Davis was named the most improved runner. He qualified for the Shelbyville Regional last Saturday.
“He ran great,” Layman said. “He’s one of the top freshmen in the area.”
Layman also presented a Steve Prefontaine Award to Kaleb Moeller for his hard work and dedication.
“He had injuries and had a lot go against him this year,” Layman said.
Layman didn’t have any seniors. Crater and Corey Reynolds are juniors. One sophomore and four freshmen made up the roster.
The coach sees a bright future for his runners.
“All signs point to cross country next year for the boys like they could be a regional powerhouse,” he said.
The middle school athletes also were honored.
Cross country
Most outstanding runner- Kolton Blevins
Tiger Mental Attitude Award- Bryson Layman
Most improved- Payton Sporleder
Volleyball
Tiger Mental Attitude Award- Rayleigh Lewis, Ashtyn Allman
Serving- Addyson Ord, Ellie Spencer
Serve receive- Rylee Henry, Ella Niccum
Most improved- Ava Hodge, Elise Prince