GREENVILLE – Greenville Senior High School held its 2019-2020 Winter Sports Awards Wednesday night with Greenville Athletic Director Aaron Shaffer welcoming student athletes, family and friends.
“Our student athletes go out and compete in an athletic arena representing their families, our school, and our community,” said Shaffer. “We have great kids. We have kids that are multi-sport athletes that are involved in clubs and organizations as well.”
The GHS winter sports programs accounted for 70 Winter Season Scholar Athletes and 23 Winter Season MVL Scholar Athletes.
“We have a lot of scholar athletes,” Shaffer noted. “We have a lot of individual and team awards but one of those things that often gets overlooked with athletics is the amount of time and dedication it takes to be a quality student athlete with student being the emphasis and athlete being the accessory.”
MVL Scholar Athletes included: Maggie Bankson, Tyler Beyke, Courtney Bryson, Mary Burk, Abigail Cattell, Nicholas Colby, Foster Cole, Christopher Elliott, Alec Fletcher, Joshua Galloway, Morgan Gilbert, Angelina Hayes, Meghan Holman, Kelli Kretschmar, Zane Mancillas, Gabriel Market, Cole Miller, Kaitlyn Schmidt, Andrew Stachler, Kaori (Emma) Takaesu, Mason Wykes and Taylor Yates.
“It’s not an easy thing to be a scholar athlete,” said Shaffer. “You are talking about carrying an A-minus average. You have to have a 3.5 accumulative GPA for the quarter to be considered a scholar athlete.”
“It’s a lot of hard work to be able to put in up to five hours depending on home or away games after school and still be able to be a quality student,” Shaffer added. “We’re obviously extremely proud of our kids who do well in the classroom as well as in an athletic arena.”
The evening events gave time to honor GHS athletes setting new school records for the school’s winter athletic programs.
Girls Basketball – Haleigh Behnken – Points in a season with 484 points.
Girls Basketball – Team – Three points shots made in a season with 101.
“Fantastic kids, fantastic people, really lucky to have been able to coach them and kind of coach them at all different times,” said Lady Wave basketball coach Rachel Kerns. “One of them I got for four years, one I just got for one year but really proud of the senior group and they set the tone for what the next season is going to be – they have just really paved it out for the next few years.”
“I found myself getting a little emotional talking about my seniors and that is very rare for me,” Kerns continued. “All I hope is they don’t have to remember every game, every win or loss but I hope that they can remember something positive from their experience and our program.”
Boys Basketball – Marcus Wood – Steals in a career with 200.
Boys Basketball – DJ Zimmer – Blocks in a season with 48.
“I don’t think there are too many programs around anywhere that graduates six senior just because often times, you have that many seniors they are probably not all playing as much as they want or scoring as much as they want and kind of drop off along the way,” said Green Wave boys basketball coach Kyle Joseph. “That is a testament to those six kids as much as anything. Just wanting to be a part of this program, wanting to be there for their teammates. It has been a pleasure to be a small part of that with them.”
“They are fabulous young men and if they had never played basketball or never played for me they would still go on to great things and be great men,” Joseph added. “Myself and all the coaches on the staff we really do love basketball, we are passionate about it and I know with 100 percent certainty the reason we do it is to be able to play a small part in helping to develop these young men, not just on the floor but off the floor.”
Boys Swimming – Carlos Badell – 200 yard Individual Medley – 2:07.92, 200 yard Butterfly – 2:12.85 and the 400 yard Individual Medley with a time of 4:38.44.
Greenville was well represented with District 9 girls basketball awards.
The Miami Valley League’s 2019-2020 leading scorer with a 19.5 per game average, Hailey Behnken was named District 9 Division-II Player of the Year and Division-II All-Southwest District Co-Player of the Year.
Behnken also received: District 9 D-II All-Star Team honors, District 9 Senior All-Star Game, First Team Division-II All-Southwest District.
Morgan Gilbert received District 9 Division-II All-Start Team, District 9 Senior All-Star Game and Honorable Mention – Division-II All-Southwest District.
Greenville sophomore DJ Zimmer – Boys Basketball District 9 Coaches Team award.
