Awards banquet

Athletic Awards.

To me the athletic awards always feel a little different.  We spend the entire year preaching team and team first attitude and we end the year by singling out four individuals among the team. I wish we could recognize everyone on the team.  There were so many moments when everyone on the team was a star.  It might not have been recognized on the score sheet, but was still important to our development.

I believe we have an incredible team culture going now.  The athletes are working extremely hard to get better.  We see their names in the weight room book often.  The spring practices are very competitive and we are working at getting better.

When is comes to choosing the award winners we always let the team vote on the awards. This has worked well for us so far; we haven’t had to pull the coach veto on any awards. We seem to have a pretty good grasp of the different roles we have among our team. The part that is great is there is always more than one person nominated for the award.

Our athletic awards are a semi formal event, but the team chooses to dress up.  It is a fun chance to see them in a totally different situation.  Of course we were by far the best looking team there.

Each team will give out four awards.  The first award is rookie of the year.  This award has to be a first year athlete.  For this reason we only had 4 athletes eligible for the award out of the six girls that joined us this year.  The award went to Shanlee McLennan.  Shanlee played many positions for us in her first year.  She spent most of the year as the third left side player. But did play libero for a couple of matches after Lindsay was injured.  Shanlee is a very positive and happy person and her impact on the team in the next four years will be tremendous.

 

The inspirational award was next.  This award is for the teammate who goes out of her way to lead.  She finds different ways to motivate people and help people find success in BU.  This year Kellie Baker our setter won the award.  Kellie was on the leadership team this year.  She was our athlete tutor for the young players on the road.  Kellie coaches U-15 club team in Brandon and is heavily involved in fastball in the summer.  With all these activities she is still able to keep her marks up.  This was Kellie’s first year as the starting setter.  She did a great job of setting and has come along way on her overall play.  Kellie was our most effective server through the season.

 

Next is the Leadership award.  This is exactly what it sounds.  This award goes to the athlete who best personifies our team values.  Loyalty, Honour and Team first.  This award was almost unanimous. Claire Willerton who we spoke about earlier in the year was the winner.  Claire is a fifth year player who was an incredible leader for us.  Quite often it is hard for the first years and the fifth years to really connect.  One group is talking about how cool their high school grad was and the other is planning their future.  But Claire did a tremendous job of connecting with the first year players.  When Claire spoke in our team meeting it was right on.  It was definitely something that needed to be said or a different way to think about it the situation. Claire is really going to be missed by us next year.

The last team award went to the team MVP.  There were so many different people who were nominated for this award for different reasons.  We could have easily made a reason for each of the starting group to win this award.  In the end Tori was voted by the team our MVP.  Tori was top three in our team in every statistical category and always has an upbeat demeanor.  She became our go to player when the chips were down. 

This banquet is also a chance to say goodbye to some athletes who have chosen to move on.  Jenna Poole is one of them. She is seen in this photo with Larissa. Jenna was our second setter and did a great job for us this year.  She was a tremendous teammate, but for academic reason she is moving to a different school . Jenna hopes to one day be a oncologist, I am positive she will achieve her goal.  .  Laura Popplestone our redshirt is in a position where she can go to a junior college for a year or two and play.  We hope that she will be coming back to us once she has developed a bit more.  All the people leaving are going to be missed.