Baseball
All-WBL honors
Wapakoneta’s Grant Jolly (player of the year) and Jason Brandt (coach of the year) received top Western Buckeye League honors.
Joining Jolly of the first team were David Jimenez (Defiance), Blaine Albright (Bath), Taylor Echols (Wapakoneta), Braydyn Shaw (Defiance), Tyler Frederick (Defiance), Aidan Kiessling (Defiance), Landon Brandt (Wapakoneta), TJ Stoller (Van Wert) and Nick Steinbrunner (Celina).
All-NWCC honors
Elgin’s Brody Wood (player of the year) and Andy Steck (coach of the year) received top Northwest Central Conference honors.
Joining Wood on the first team were Jayden Elliott (Waynesfield-Goshen), Nolan Hopson (Hardin Northern), Jace Kaufman (Waynesfield-Goshen), Jebadiah McGue (Ridgemont), Alex Sanders (Upper Scioto Valley), Hunter Scott (Perry), Brady Shively (Perry), Zach Spearman (Hardin Northern), Mason Stewart (Hardin Northern), Donavon Stiten (Elgin), Maddox Underwood, (Upper Scioto Valley), Xander Wilson (Hardin Northern) and Ben Wood (Elgin).
All-PCL honors
Kalida’s Carson Klausing (player of the year) and Chad Ehrnsberger (coach of the year) received top Putnam County League honors.
Joining Klausing on the first team were Shep Halker (Columbus Grove), Brock Hoffman (Columbus Grove), Bryce Glaser (Fort Jennings), Jarron Swick (Fort Jennings), Jaden Smith (Kalida), Bubba Smith (Kalida), Quin Schroeder (Leipisc), Brent Koenig (Miller City) and Isaac Stall (Pandora-Gilboa)
Softball
All-WBL honors
Defiance’s Taighen Zipfel (player of the year) and Dennis Parrish (coach of the year) received top Western Buckeye League honors.
Joining Zipfel on the first team were Claire Armentrout (Bath), Elena Oliver (Bath), Peyton Bertke (Celina), Ayvah Cullen (Defiance), Leah Ramirez (Elida), Brynn Butler (Kenton), Adyson Van De Keere (St. Marys), Haylee Wurm (Shawnee), Carlie Schroeder (Wapakoneta) and Addison Fisher (Wapakoneta).
All-NWCC
Elgin’s Alyvia Roth (player of the year) and Elgin’s Wendy Muselin and Ridgedale’s Randy Bennett (co-coaches of the year) received top Northwest Central Conference honors.
Joining Roth on the first team were Emilie Bishop (Elgin), Abigail Bridges (Ridgedale), Brielle Cotterman (Upper Scioto Valley), Makenzie Delaney (Ridgedale), Tatelyn Faraglia (Waynesfield Goshen), Madison Hill (Elgin), Hallie Howard (Ridgemont), Gracie Isler (Elgin), Lilly Ruth (Ridgedale), Aubrie Smith (Ridgedale) and Kyra Wilcox (Elgin).
All-PCL honors
Columbus Grove’s Gwen Langhals and Continental’s Leva Aguirre received top Putnam County League honors.
Joining Langhals on the first team were Megan Bogart (Columbus Grove), Gracie Homier (Continental), Kassidy Hipsher (Kalida), Marisa Hermiller (Leipsic), Sam Demuth (Miller City), Isabel Reyna (Miller City), Taylor Wilhelm (Miller City), Hannah Wenzlick (Ottoville) and Alexis Wentz (Pandora-Gilboa).
NWCC scholarship
winners revealed
Hardin Northern’s Zeb Wilson and Temple Christian’s Cecelia Worsham are each a recipient of a Northwest Central Conference Jonathan R. Shively Scholarship Award. Each year one male and one female athlete receive a scholarship in Shively’s memory.
St. Marys collects
all-sports trophy
This year’s Superior Credit Union Western Buckeye League All Sports Trophy has been awarded to St. Marys.
The Roughriders collected 152 points with three first place finishes, three second place finishes and and six third place finishes out of the 20 sports sponsored by the WBL.
Wapakoneta (138), Ottawa-Glandorf (132.5) and Shawnee (131.5) were second through fourth respectively.
Colleges
Football
ONU heading
back to Europe
ADA — The Ohio Northern football team will put its 5-0 record in international competition on the line when the Polar Bears embark on their sixth trip to Europe from Wednesday, May 24-June 1.
ONU will travel to Rome for four nights, then on to Naples, the Amalfi coast for two nights, then back to Rome for the final evening before returning to the United States.
The Polar Bears will play an exhibition game on Sunday at 4 pm (10 am EDT) against an all-star game from the top Italian league, Federazione Italiana Di American Football.
Track & field
Two from Ohio Northern recognized
ADA — Ohio Northern junior Keegan Digby (Bowling Green/Otsego) and assistant coach Molly Amidon earned Great Lakes Region superlative honors in men’s outdoor track and field for 2023 by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
Digby was named Great Lakes Region Field Athlete of the Year, and Amidon earned recognition as Great Lakes Region Assistant Coach of the Year.
An All-American and school record-holder in both the indoor and outdoor shot put, Digby swept the USTFCCCA regional honors in 2023, as he was named the Great Lakes Region Indoor Field Athlete of the Year in March.
Digby won the Ohio Athletic Conference championship in both the indoor and outdoor shot put this season and earned six OAC Field Athlete of the Week honors over the course of the 2023 indoor and outdoor seasons.
At the 2023 OAC Outdoor Championships, he tied for the team lead in scoring 12 points by winning the shot put and placing seventh in the hammer throw.
Digby’s school-record mark of 17.46 meters in the shot put came at the Ashland Alumni Open on April 28. That distance ranks third nationally in NCAA Division III this season.
Amidon was recognized for her work with Northern’s sprinters and hurdlers this season. Now in her sixth year at ONU, Amidon coached six Polar Bear student-athletes in three events to qualify for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships.
Polar Bear athletes receive honor
ADA — Ohio Northern seniors Meredith Miller (Noblesville, Ind.), Amanda Wells (Mason) and Isabella Orofino (Powell/Olentangy Liberty) and juniors Gabby Monastra (Wooster) and Grace Honigford (West Chester/Lakota East) were named to the 2023 Women’s Academic All-District At-Large Team by College Sports Communicators.
Miller, Wells and Monastra are members of the ONU women’s lacrosse team, and Orofino and Honigford are Polar Bear golfers.
On the men’s side, Ohio Northern seniors Cole Zaferakis (Liverpool, N.Y.) and Ben DePrest (Louisville, Ky./Saint Xavier) and sophomores Jacob Reed (Lancaster), Gavin Layman (Chesterton, Ind.) and Adam Myers (Springfield/Shawnee) were named to the 2023 Men’s Academic All-District At-Large Team by College Sports Communicators.
Zaferakis is a goalkeeper on the ONU men’s lacrosse team, and DePrest, Reed, Layman and Myers are Polar Bear wrestlers.
To be eligible for Academic All-District honors, each student-athlete must have at least a 3.5 GPA and have played in at least 50 percent of her team’s competitions. The CSC’s at-large sports include beach volleyball, bowling, crew/rowing, fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing and water polo.
