CENTERBURG – Nine Centerburg athletes announced their college decisions on Monday, May 24, in the biggest Signing Day ceremony the school has held.
Two of those nine athletes will not be pursuing athletics but rather are joining the military. Brock Hurtt will be joining the Air Force and Ian McKnight is heading off to the Navy.
“They’re student-athletes and I wanted to recognize them as well,” Centerburg athletic director Rich Porter said. “We’ve never done that before. This is the first time.”
The other seven athletes along with their college and sport are Ethan Barton (Capital University, track and field), Ross Boyd (Adrian College, wrestling), Savannah Dehart (University of Mount Union, softball), Ben Day (Olivet Nazarene University, football), Blake Johnson (Ohio Wesleyan University, cross country/track and field), Ben Riegel (Miami University, track and field) and Gavin Wilson (Ohio Wesleyan University, football).
“This senior class has gone through a lot with COVID,” Porter said. “Some of them sitting at the table were in quarantine lockdowns because of exposure and things like that. So it’s been a very long (year) for a lot of those kids.”
The nine join Tyler Harry and Carter Jones, who held signing ceremonies in the fall.
For Boyd, this was a particularly momentous day. He missed most of the postseason because of a shoulder injury and a concussion suffered during the sectional tournament.
But there is another remarkable part to Boyd’s story.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here at all because my sophomore year I was in a really bad motorcycle accident,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to wrestle again or (do) sports in general. I’m very thankful to wrestle and stuff. I use wrestling as a release to get away from reality and just be me.”
Boyd plans to go into business marketing and design at Adrian. He is already aiming to get a t-shirt business going with a website soon to be published.
Barton said he was down to (choosing between) Capital and Otterbein before settling. He plans to sprint and do long jump at the next level.
“At the end of the day, I loved both of them,” he said. “The cost was the same. Either way, I’d be commuting. Ultimately, the decision was that I’d feel more at home at Capital.”
Johnson wasn’t keen on OWU initially. But he whittled a $62,000-per-year bill down to approximately $17,000 with scholarships.
He wants to pursue political science and have a career in the school board.
“I want to get into the educational system and on the school board and fix some of the issues I see,” Johnson said. “I won’t get into specifics about that, but I definitely already have some ideas.”
Riegel wants to pursue biochemistry at Miami. Regarding his decision, it came down to the pursuit.
“I never really pictured myself going to a Division I school,” he said. “I was looking at smaller schools like Mount Union and Ohio Wesleyan. But Miami’s coach reached out to me. They really weren’t on my radar before that. Just from doing research and getting to visit campus, it seemed like a good fit for me.”
Like Riegel, Wilson felt a connection with the coaches at OWU.
“I had more of a personal connection with the coaches there,” Wilson said. “They brought me in, and I got to sit down and have a conversation with each and every one of them. They’ve been in contact with me throughout this whole entire process and really helped me out. I like the campus and the location; it’s still close to home.”
