Greeley Honors Its Athletes

Four years that saw the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat came to an end for the seniors at Horace Greeley High School on Sunday.

The Greeley Sports Boosters club helped to host the school's annual sports award night and banquet honoring the senior athletes for their work and effort both on and off the field.

Held in the ballroom at the Marriot in Tarrytown, both the student-athletes and their parents enjoyed a slideshow of different highlights from the season and a dinner before the awards were given.

The teams all received recognition from their coaches for the hard work and efforts not only for this year, but over four years for the program. The coaches named MVP's for each team and also gave out other awards to their players for what they did as members of their respective teams.

The biggest moment of the night came with the announcement of the boy's and girls' athlete of the year awards.

The Nicholas J. Perrelle award for Senior Male Athlete of the Year was given to two swimmers, Matt Hadley and Mike Nicholson. Their head coach, Meg Kaplan, presented the award and named all the accomplishments they had achieved during four years in the program.

The highlights included both winning Section 1 Swimmer of the Year and leading the team to league, division and sectional rounds.

"Its been a lot of fun, we did a lot of winning over the past four years," said Nicholson, when asked about his career at Greeley. "Winning the sectionals in my junior year was the highlight of my career. Winning the award is great, but with the Section 1 title and the 37 wins and only one loss, that was the most fun."

The Greeley swimming program has been the most dominant of all Greeley sports the past few years and Hadley was proud to know he was part of it.

"It's really nice to know that I play a sport that really leaves a mark on Greeley," he said.

The Elizabeth Todd Eldon Award for Senior Female Athlete of the Year was given to three-sport start, Emily Taylor. As the MVP of both the soccer and softball teams, and a member of the girls basketball team, she felt that it wasn't hard to play three sports and keep up with her work.

"I actually didn't think it was that hard. I hate not doing anything, I always love being active," she said. "Playing three sports helped me stay on track, I would just do practice, then come home and do my work, and in between seasons I felt weird because I didn't have anything to do."

Taylor was the only player to win the MVP award in two different sports and all-league honors in both softball and soccer.

At the end of the evening the athletes gathered their belongings and with their parents left the hotel with awards in hand. All of their accomplishments and triumphs at Greeley are now over and they are ready to start all over again at different colleges across the country.