Two weeks ago, we spotlighted the 40 Mount Vernon News female Athetes of the Week who earned honors in 2021-2022, and last week we presented the 49 male Athletes of the Week recognized in this feature. Today, we announce the MVN Female Athlete of the Year, and next week, the Male Athlete of the Year will be on stage.
So, who gets our call as Athlete of the Year?
Does a one-sport phenom stand out over multi-sport student-athletes? Does an athlete who is a driving force behind a team championship outdistance a teammate who inspires and performs at the highest level even though her team did not bring home postseason hardware? We listened to the community for obvious contribution and behind-the-obvious intangibles.
First, we want to congratulate all student athletes who earned Mount Vernon News Athlete of the Week honors and those who worked just as hard on and off the field, and performed brilliantly, but were not mentioned this year. We rely on coaches and the community to partner with us in making the nominations and we hope community members, coaches and ADs will be proactive next year in making sure your children and relatives, community youths, student-athletes and school programs receive the recognition they deserve.
Moving forward to this year’s top female athlete. We will first announce the finalists, followed by the winner, though all three of these ladies are winners.
The Finalists
This is a difficult decision, and many athletes deserved the honors, but based on community feedback we have selected three finalists. These three girls all deserved multiple additional nominations for their domination of the field of play. They were team leaders and all deserve the top spot, but there can be only one. These student athletes showed consistently high skill and performance levels, team leadership, team camaraderie and dominance on the field and courts of play.
Division and conference play come into consideration and some athletes named player or runner of the year were measured whether they earned nominations here or not. Our three finalists are the following:
Gabby Daniels
Fredericktown senior power forward Gabby Daniels was our first back-to-back nominee and only three-time nominee, all in basketball. In December, she put together three double-doubles in a row, including 13 points and 14 rebounds vs. Utica and 19 points and 10 boards vs. Danville in a game she controlled with five buckets in the fourth quarter. The following week, she earned a nomination with 21 points, five rebounds and five steals vs. Northmor, a 20-point night with eight boards and six steals vs. Elgin and a 19-point night against Northmor. Six weeks later, she got her third nomination with a career-high 29-point performance in a 53-27 win over Ontario. For the season, Daniels earned KMAC First Team basketball honors, finishing fourth in scoring at 13.5 ppg, first in rebounds at 8.2 rpg, fifth in blocks at 0.6 and ninth in steals at 2.6.
Daniels, the team captain, was praised by Freddies head coach Tim Maceyko.
“She is a great student, team captain and a four-year letter winner," he said. “Gabby has always been willing to do whatever the team needs. This year, that happens to include her taking on a bigger role offensively. She worked hard for three years to get to this point, and worked hard all this season as well. She is a leader.”
Beth Hardwick
Cardington-Lincoln won another KMAC girls basketball championship, and Beth Hardwick, a two-time nominee, was a team leader.
Hardwick was named KMAC Basketball Player of the Year and was third in scoring at 13.8 ppg, seventh in rebounds at 6.0 and sixth in blocks at 0.6. She earned two nominations, winning her first in November in the season opener for the Lady Pirates, going 5-for-7 from 3-point range vs. the Ridgedale Rockets during a 19-point outing, with seven rebounds, five steals and one assist.
Cardington-Lincoln’s girls basketball coach, Jamie Edwards, said, “Beth gave us a gritty performance. She picked the team up offensively when we were struggling from the field.”
Three weeks later, Hardwick got her second, with a 20-point night vs. Danville to help keep the Lady Pirates’ undefeated season alive at that point. On that night, she was 8-of-15 from two-point range, pulled down eight rebounds (three on the offensive boards), grabbed three steals, had two deflections and added three assists. Down 30-23 at the half against Danville, Hardwick’s 11-point third quarter kept C-L in the game against a tough Blue Devils team and gave the Trojans a 1-point lead going into the fourth quarter.
Edwards said, “Beth is a natural born leader, on and off the court, who has served as a captain the past two seasons. The quote ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ is the motto she lives by. She is a firm believer in putting in work when nobody is watching. Beth is a great role model for younger players.”
Natalie Smith
Knox County was rewarded this year with an RBI machine, East Knox junior Natalie Smith. The powerful-swinging Lady Bulldog led the KMAC in batting at .600, slugging with an astronomical 1.067, home runs with seven, RBIs with 41, on-base percentage at .638 and a staggering OPS of 1.705. She won one nomination and could have been named several more times.
At the point of her nomination, she had driven in 33 RBIs in 13 games, 11 more than anyone else in the KMAC. In EK’s 17-1 win over Northmor on April 20, Smith belted two home runs, including a grand slam, and drove in seven runs, and she finished up with two solid innings in the circle to close out the game. In the Lady Bulldogs’ 27-0 mauling of Mount Gilead on April 14, Smith had six RBIs, and on April 2, in EK’s 21-3 win over Marysville, Smith hit grand slam and drove in seven as part of a nine-RBI doubleheader.
East Knox softball coach Jake Ulrey said Smith is one of the best hitters to go through EK in the past 10 years.
“She is a tremendous teammate who only cares about the team’s success," Ulrey said. “Natalie works hard and plays hard mentally as well as physically, yet she is always having fun no matter what she is doing. She is a great student at career center. She is a very smart, driven young lady,”
The Female Athlete of the Year is:
As stated, the decision is a tough one. All three student-athletes deserve to be awarded the honor and many others who excelled in multiple sports in the area deserved to be considered. By a slim margin, due to her game-by-game, season-long performance and leadership and clutch delivering on the field, Natalie Smith is named Mount Vernon News Female Athlete of the Year.
To coaches and community members, join us next fall as we resume our award process. Send us your choices for MVN Athlete of the Week, a recap of their prowess in competition and a photo of them and give them the community recognition they deserve. Encourage your community members and coaches to contact us each week. Send your selections to: mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com
