Some of the individual award winners after the seventh annual SAAC Tiger Awards banquet.
Photo by Erin Pence
Women's lacrosse was named the Most Improved Team.
Photo by Erin Pence
Men's basketball earned Most Outstanding Men's Team of the Year honors.
Photo by Erin Pence
The volleyball team was voted the Most Outstanding Women's Team of the Year following their national championship.
Photo by Erin Pence
Springfield, Ohio — The seventh annual Tiger Awards, recognizing excellence in athletic and academic performance by Wittenberg University student-athletes during the 2011-12 school year, were handed out during a banquet on April 29.
Hundreds of student-athletes attended the banquet, which is organized and led annually by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). Voting by SAAC members resulted in 19 different team and individual awards encompassing a wide range of athletic, academic and extracurricular achievements during the 2011-12 school year. The goal of the annual event is to highlight and showcase accomplishments across the department of athletics.
In addition to the Tiger Awards, 24 inductees into Wittenberg's chapter of the national student-athlete honorary Chi Alpha Sigma were recognized, as were senior volleyball standout Kimmie Dyer (Copley, Ohio/Copley) and senior men's basketball standout Clayton Black (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster), Wittenberg's 2012 North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Scholar Athlete award-winners.
The event's first awards given out were the Male and Female Newcomer of the Year Awards. They went to a pair of track and field standouts as freshman Shelby Kaho (Sugar Grove, Ohio/Berne Union) and sophomore Victor Banjo (Sugarland, Texas/Stephen F. Austin) picked up the hardware. Kaho won the 60-meter hurdles and set a school record at the NCAC Indoor Championships, while Banjo was unbeaten in the 55-meter dash until the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships. He earned All-America honors after finishing fourth at the national meet.
Tiger Spirit Awards, given to one male and one female student-athlete who best support and encourage fellow student-athletes, went to senior men's basketball player Sam Gardner (Noblesville, Ind./Noblesville) and senior volleyball player Hillary Monnin (Russia, Ohio/Russia).
Extracurricular Male Athlete of the Year went to senior Alex Brandt (Lewis Center, Ohio/Olentangy) of the basketball team, and Extracurricular Female Athlete of the Year was awarded to swimming senior Jenna Montali (Richmond Heights, Ohio/Regina) in recognition of their outstanding performance in the classroom, involvement in various academic honoraries and clubs and organizations outside of varsity athletics.
Academic-Athlete Awards went to Sam Gardner on the men's side. For the women, two awards were given as senior distance swimmer Rachel Lee (Hickory, NC/Hickory) and women's basketball forward Kim Replogle (Houston, Ohio/Houston) were both honored.
Victor Banjo was named Record-Breaking Male Athlete of the Year after setting a new standard for sprinters during the indoor season. The Record-Breaking Female Athlete Award went to the four members of the 200-yard medley relay team. Junior Ward McNulty (Glencoe, Ill./New Trier), sophomore Sarah Wilson (Centennial, Colo./Arapahoe), sophomore Molly Gustafson (West Hartford, Conn./Conard) and senior Keaton Hannon (Peachtree City, Ga./McIntosh) placed 13th in the NCAA Division III Championships after setting a school record en route to a third-place finish at the NCAC championship meet a month earlier.
The awards for Overall Performance by an Individual went to Clayton Black, who earned first-team All-NCAC and All-Great Lakes Region honors after leading the Tigers to the NCAA Division III Tournament quarterfinals, and Kimmie Dyer, who earned third-team All-America honors. After leading the Tiger volleyball to its first-ever NCAA Division III championship, Dyer was named the national tournament's Most Outstanding Player, becoming the first female student-athlete in Wittenberg history to garner such accolades.
Two career achievement awards were also distributed. Clayton Black continued to rack up the honors, winning the men's award in recognition of his tremendous career in the Red & White, capped by back-to-back NCAA Division III Tournament appearances and the 2012 NCAC regular season title. The Female Collegiate Achievement Award went to senior volleyball middle hitter Katie Sumner (Dublin, Ohio/Watterson). She earned four All-NCAC, three all-region and two All-America awards during her collegiate career, highlighted by 2011 NCAC Player of the Year honors.
The Most Improved Team award went to the Tiger women's lacrosse squad, which put the finishing touches on its first-ever unbeaten NCAC regular season in program history just one day earlier. The Tigers finished first in the regular season standings and will put their No. 1 seed in the NCAC Tournament on the line in the semifinals at 3 p.m. Thursday, May 3.
Men's basketball Head Coach Bill Brown took home the Men's Coach of the Year and volleyball Head Coach Paco Labrador garnered Women's Coach of the Year. The men's basketball team posted records of 24-7 overall and 14-2 in the NCAC, good for the regular season title and a berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament for a second straight year. The volleyball team posted records of 37-3 overall and 16-0 in the NCAC, won the conference's regular season and tournament crowns for the 17th time each, and went on to become the fifth Wittenberg team to win an NCAA championship.
The Most Outstanding Men's Team of the Year Award went to the men's basketball team, and the volleyball team took the Outstanding Women's Team of the Year honors for the sixth time in seven years.
The event marked the final SAAC meeting of the 2011-12 school year. SAAC is an organization that represents and advocates the interests of Wittenberg student-athletes to the rest of the university community. Through bi-weekly meetings, student-athletes are able to network and organize events.
Written By: Ryan Maurer
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