By Blake Santana
As we near the Thanksgiving break for schools, it was time to honor the Fall athletes for the Alvirne Broncos as the Alvirne athletic department hosted their tri-annual awards night.
All-in-all, a total of eight teams were honored that evening, as awards were presented for girls’ volleyball, boys’ and girls’ soccer, boys’ and girls’ cross country, cheer/spirit, and golf, with the football team holding off their awards until their Dec. 8 Varsity Football Banquet.
The night began with cross country awards, starting with the girls’ team and then moving to the boys’ team. For the girls, the first award given was the “Most Improved”, which went to Chase Wherry. The second award was for the “Rookie of the Year”, which was awarded to Lilliana Schultz. The final award for the girls’ team was the Coaches’ Award, which also served as their MVR, or Most Valuable Runner, award. That went to Sophia Berube, who served as Alvirne’s assistant captain this season.
Then, we moved to the boys’ side, with the boys having a similar award slate. They started with their Rookie of the Year, which went to Ashton Rowe. They followed that up with the Coaches’ Award, which was given to Ryder Watermaker. Then it was onto the MVR Award, which Brent Dunning took home.
From there, it was on to the girls’ team. The Coaches’ Award went to senior midfielder, Kayda Chan. They then gave out the Iron Woman Award to Bri Peters, who played through numerous injuries throughout the course of the season. The team then chose, in lieu of an MVP award, a co-MVP award, which went to both Sadie Rogers and Annaleisa Rivera.
For the golf team, starting out with their Coaches’ Award, which was given to senior golfer, Dylan Page. They then proceeded to surprise the audience with a new award, dubbed the Doug Robinson Character and Community Award, which was given to fellow senior, Trent Scarbro. The final award presented was the Scholar Athlete Award, which Logan Casey won.
The girls’ volleyball team began with their Offensive Player of the Year, or OPOY, which was awarded to Diana McElhinney, she led the team in service aces and was second in both digs and kills for the Broncos. They then moved on to Defensive Player of the Year, or DPOY, and Petrina Ofori won that award. The final award for volleyball was their MVP, which went to Cienna Clay.
The boys’ soccer team started with their MVP award. Matt Branco took home the honors after leading the 5-9-2 Broncos in goals this season. From there it was the Iron Man Award, which James Dlubac took home. Their Coaches’ Award, which is called the HART Award, HART being an acronym for the Heart Ambition Respect and Teamwork, which went to Aiden Flaherty.
The last set of awards to be presented was the cheer/spirit team. The first award they handed out was the Bronco Award, which was presented to the member of the cheerleading team who showed the Broncos’ core values of Community, Curiosity, Character, and Teamwork. That award went to Mayah Davio. The Leadership award was given to team captain Miley Auger. The final award of the night was the Cheer Coaches’ Award, which was given to Abigail Labonte.
Football coach, Matt Lee, did speak to the Bronco crowd about their season, which was the best season in Alvirne history, that ended with the first .500 or better record for the Broncos in Division I. They did not present any awards, as those will go out at the Varsity Banquet on Dec. 8.