South Dakota sportswriters announce annual awards

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The Dakota Wesleyan women’s golf team, the Canistota football team and Letcher native Jill Moody have been recognized by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association.

The association named their annual athletes, coaches and teams for the year 2010 today. The awards have been given out by the association since 1954.

Categories include athlete, coach and team for high school boys and girls, and college men and women, as well as independent male and female athletes, independent team and the state’s sports celebrity of the year.

Selections are made through voting by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association, which includes the daily newspapers in Mitchell, Aberdeen, Brookings, Huron, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Watertown and Yankton.

The Canistota High School football team was named the prep boys’ team of the year, picking up one more award for its historical season that included an undefeated record and the school’s first-ever state championship.

Canistota was the top vote-getter in a category that included Philip’s track and field team, Sioux Falls Washington’s football team and Sturgis’ wrestling team.

“All of our kids benefited from a great team experience,” Canistota coach Lenny Schroeder said.

The Hawks went 12-0 and won the Class 9B state championship over Hitchcock-Tulare at the DakotaDome. Canistota outscored its opponents 627-38 on the season.

The Hawks proved to be the class of 9-man football in the state by beating the 9AA state champion Bridgewater-Emery/Ethan and 9A champion Hanson during the regular season.

Senior running back Jeb Olsen rushed for single-season school records of 1,751 yards and 35 touchdowns for Canistota.

The Dakota Wesleyan University women’s golf team was named the college women’s team of the year.

The award also had the South Dakota State University women’s basketball team receive votes.

The Tigers won their second-consecutive Great Plains Athletic Conference title under the leadership of coach Adam Anderson. It was DWU’s seventh conference title in the past eight seasons.

DWU also made their seventh-straight trip to the NAIA national tournament, where it finished 19th.

“This is a little surprising,” Anderson said of the recognition. “When you’re in the middle of your season and going from event to event, you never really consider these types of awards. It’s pretty awesome.”

Anderson was named the GPAC coach of the year for the third time in four seasons and junior Dani Bellet won the conference player of the year award for the second year in a row.

Bellet, a native of Lead, won nine of the 13 tournaments she entered and finished in the top five in all 13 last season.

Kelli Baseley, Kelly Daniels and Heather Love also earned first-team all-GPAC honors for the Tigers. DWU garnered four of the 15 first-team all-conference spots.

Moody was named the independent female athlete of the year.

She won her second career average championship in the barrel racing competition at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Moody won a category that included Mellette’s Diedra Artz, a senior setter for the Wayne State University volleyball team, and Watertown’s Marcelina Glab. Glab is a volleyball player for Washington State University.

Moody and her horse, Dolly, also won the average championship in 2008. But then Dolly missed the 2009 season when she came down with pneumonia.

“You always wonder, when your horse has an illness or an injury of any type, how they’ll come back,” Moody said of Dolly, a 10-year-old gray mare. “She came back as strong, or stronger, than ever.”

The team of Moody and Dolly broke the 25-year-old NFR barrel racing average record on their way to the title. Charmayne James’ mark of 138.93 was set in 1986. Moody finished her 10 rounds with a score of 138.26 on her way to a $44,910 payout for the average title.

Celebrity

YANKTON — Stefan Logan has been named the South Dakota athletic celebrity of the year.

The former University of South Dakota record-breaker and current special teams standout for the NFL’s Detroit Lions does not shy away from recalling the comments of his former critics, who once told him he was too short and too small to play at that level.

“The things I’ve heard are always in my mind. This is something I love; what I’ve always dreamed of doing,” Logan said after a team workout last week. “I’ll always have a chip on my shoulder from that. I kept thinking, ‘You can’t let my size get in the way.’

“All I wanted was a chance.”

As the main kickoff and punt returner for the Lions, Logan is among the league’s best in bringing back kickoffs. His 49 returns rank fourth in the NFL, while his average of 28.3 ranks 16th.

The highlight of his season, and of his NFL career, game in an October game against St. Louis Rams. In the second quarter of an eventual Lions rout, Logan scored on a 105-yard kickoff return touchdown — still the longest play in the NFL this season.

Independent male athlete

YANKTON — Since arriving on the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, Ind., in 2006, a steady stream of awards have come Bill Hardcastle’s way.

Those award continue today for the Boilermakers’ track and field senior standout from Mobridge. He has been named the Independent Men’s Athlete of the Year by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association, which has been giving out the annual awards since 1954.

Hardcastle has won a trio of Big Ten titles and qualified for the NCAA Division I outdoor championships twice. He owns some of the top throws marks in Purdue history, owning the No. 3 outdoor mark in the shot put and discus.

He was named the 2008 Big Ten Conference outdoor athlete of the year, athlete of the championships and freshman of the year.

Independent team

RAPID CITY — It’s a hockey tried-and-true. Go hard to the net and good things will happen.

Scott Wray did just that before a packed Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Ice Arena on May 4, and a Central Hockey League championship happened for the Rapid City Rush.

The Rush’s stirring rise to the top of the CHL ladder in just their second season of existence is the Rapid City Journal’s top sports story of 2010.

With less than one minute left in second overtime period of Game 6 against the Allen Americans and using the outlet pass from defenseman Dave Grimson, forwards Les Reaney and Wray penetrated the Amerks’ offensive zone.

Reaney fired the puck at goalie Chris Whitley as Wray charged in, hoping to snag a rebound.

Whitley stopped the shot with his chest pad, but the puck caromed off Wray’s thigh and into the net to win.

Prep boys’ athlete

SIOUX FALLS — Whether from an individual or team standpoint, it would be hard to come up with many who had better high school careers at South Dakota’s highest level of football than Matt Hermanson of Sioux Falls Washington.

A four-year starter at safety and two-year starter at quarterback, Hermanson led the Warriors to four consecutive 11AA championship game appearances at the DakotaDome, winning the last two, and helping to build what many have tabbed as the best prep football team in state history. The Warriors will take a 26-game winning streak into their title defense next year, after outscoring their opponents 549-62 last year.

Hermanson, who will go on to play college football at Montana, threw for 1,359 yards and 22 touchdowns, rushed for another 562 yards, and registered 61 tackles and five interceptions as a senior.

Prep boys’ coach

BROOKINGS — It came as no surprise that Michael Ricke’s Madison Bulldogs won the 2009 Class A boys’ basketball championship with all-state players Tony Fiegen and Chad White on the roster, but to repeat in 2010 after those two went on to South Dakota State to play for Scott Nagy’s Jackrabbits did raise some eyebrows.

“I would be lying if I said I was expecting it (to win two in a row),” Ricke said. “I knew we were going to have a solid team coming back, but to accomplish what we did, it did take me by surprise - just in the fashion of how we did it.”

Prep girls’ athlete

RAPID CITY — Rapid City Central track and field phenom Jasmyne King was so good that she was named the South Dakota High School Female Athlete of the Year in what was, for her, a down year.

King won just one event — the 100-meter dash — at the 2010 Class AA state track and field meet in Sioux Falls after winning 11 in her first three high school seasons, but she would have won at least one more if she hadn’t suffered one of the more heart-wrenching injuries in recent memory. In the second day of the Class AA state meet, King ruptured her Achilles tendon.

King is the only South Dakota school girl to win four individual gold medals in one year — given to the top finisher at the state meet, regardless of class — and she did it twice, in both 2007 and 2008. She is the all-time state record holder in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes, despite suffering through injury-riddled junior and senior seasons, and she also held the state long jump record for two years. King is now at the University of Miami taking a redshirt season and recovering from the injury.

Prep girls’ team

RAPID CITY — Sturgis claimed its first girls’ title in school history at the Class AA state cross country tournament in Huron. The Scoopers placed three runners in the top 10 and four in the top 25 to claim the title by one point over Yankton, the defending state champion.

Scooper senior and defending individual champion Madeleine Takahashi finished fifth.

Kahlie Peterson took fourth place, Taylar Applegate was 10th and Baillie Mutchler was 23rd for Sturgis. All three runners are freshmen or younger.

Prep Girls’ Coach

Success wasn’t anything new for Arlington High School’s volleyball team and its longtime head coach Anita Boeck this fall.

The Cardinals compiled another outstanding season — one that ended with a 3-1 victory over unbeaten, top-ranked and defending state champion Warner in the championship of the state Class B volleyball tournament. Warner had defeated Arlington 3-2 to win the 2009 state B championship.

The title was the first ever for the Cardinals, who were making their 15th state-tournament appearance since 1984. Arlington had finished second four times and third five times before clearing the final hurdle.

Arlington finished the season with a 33-2 record, avenging one of its two regular-season losses in the state championship.

In 21 seasons at Arlington, Boeck’s teams have compiled a record of 517 wins, 192 losses and 10 ties. She is the fifth winningest coach in South Dakota high school volleyball history.

College men’s athlete

SIOUX FALLS — Nearly every time the University of Sioux Falls football team stepped on the field this year, Jon Ryan got in the end zone.

A 6-foot-4 senior wide receiver, Ryan set an NAIA single-season record with 24 touchdown receptions, earning him both NAIA national player of the year and Great Plains Athletic Conference offensive player of the year.

For the year, Ryan caught 80 passes for a school-record 1,421 yards. Though the Cougars were unable to go out with a national championship this year, Ryan left with a strong performance, catching seven passes for 90 yards in USF’s 10-7 loss to Carroll College in the NAIA title game.

College Men’s Team

The Mount Marty College baseball team put together a magical run that left the Lancers just one win shy of its first NAIA World Series berth.

Along the way, the Lancers won their first Great Plains Athletic Conference regular season title and set a school record with 39 victories.

Trey Krier, the GPAC pitcher of the year, tossed a perfect game against Briar Cliff, then threw a one-hitter and a two-hitter on consecutive days on the final weekend of the GPAC season, helping MMC clinch the title.

College men’s coach

SIOUX FALLS — In his first year at the helm, Augustana football coach Mike Aldrich led the Vikings to their first playoff appearance in 21 years, a school record 11 wins (the previous record was eight) and an attention-grabbing 38-6 trouncing of perennial power Grand Valley State for the first playoff win in school history. Their season ended with a 24-13 loss at Minnesota-Duluth, the eventual national champion.

They were ranked sixth in the final Division II poll of the year, their highest ranking ever, and Aldrich was named Region 5 coach of the year, and is a finalist for the Liberty Mutual national coach of the year.

College women’s athlete

ABERDEEN — Northern State senior Amanda Madden finished her collegiate track and field career with a flourish.

The small-town hero from Herreid not only hit the big-time, but conquered it with her second national track and field championship. In the winter of 2010, she won the national indoor weight throw title. That spring, Madden won the national outdoor hammer title.

The five-time all-American then earned maybe her biggest reward by being named the NCAA Division II outdoor scholar athlete of the year.

She not only had winning throws at those 2010 national meets, she had some of the best ever. Her winning hammer throw was the eighth best in the history of DII.

College women’s coach

SIOUX FALLS — Augustana has established itself as a Division II cross country power under Tracy Hellman, who makes conference titles and national meet appearances a regular occurrence.

Hellman led the Augustana women to a seventh place finish nationally, after winning a fourth consecutive conference championship (three in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and the final North Central Conference crown). Runa Falch was the women’s individual NSIC champion under Hellman’s guidance.

Hellman has won an NSIC coach of the year award in each of the last three years, as the Viking men have also won the last two conference championships.

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