Former Western Brown High School standout Drew Day has been solid on the mound for the University of Cincinnati Clermont baseball team this spring. Photo by Sheila Fontaine
The Georgetown High School girls basketball team recently received the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association’s Academic Team Award for 2022-23.
The Georgetown High School girls basketball team recently received the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association’s Academic Team Award for 2022-23. Team members pictured in the front row, left to right: Lelia Gullett, Gabrielle Ernst, Olivia Henson, Alexis Neal, Riley Bertram, (SSG) Staff Sergeant Matt Eldridge, who presented the award. Back row, left to right: Kayleeanna Dalton, Natalee McCann, Anistin Fender, Maddie Hudson, Emily Bertram. Not pictured: Caroline Ernst, Lizzy Cahall, Morgan Preston, Madison Riggs.
In basketball, there are numerous acronyms that can gauge a player’s and team’s prowess on the court: PPG (points per game), RPG (rebounds per game), and so on and so on. Those numbers can go a long way toward, say, season-ending accolades.
The Georgetown High School girls basketball team recently received a basketball-oriented award, but it had nothing to do with PPG or RPG or even the team’s winning percentage. Still, it was a prestigious award – only a handful of girls basketball teams in the state received it.
Recently, during lunchtime at the school, the Lady G-Men were given the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association’s Academic Team Award for 2022-23. The award is gauged on a team’s overall grade-point average (GPA).
To qualify for the award, teams must submit non-weighted (4.0) grade-point averages for nine varsity players in their programs. Boys and girls teams with the five highest GPAs as a team earned the honor. The Georgetown girls tied for fourth with a 3.98 GPA.
Mason and Chagrin Falls topped the girls division with 4.0 GPAs; New Philadelphia led the boys at 3.95.
Former Brown County baseball stars lead surging Cougars
The University of Cincinnati Clermont baseball team was third in the most recent United States Collegiate Athletic Conference national rankings and is coming off home-and-away doubleheader splits with previously top-ranked Miami University-Hamilton.
And the secret to the Cougars’ success this season? Coach Keith Bauman will be the first to tell you that it has had a lot to do with the team’s home-grown talent – players from area Brown County and Clermont County high schools. From Brown County, that’s Drew Day, Bryce Rayner and Austin Stigers of Western Brown High School and Ian Wiles of Eastern Brown High School.
Offensively, Bauman says Rayner, Stigers and Wiles are among those playing big roles as the Cougars head down the stretch in the regular season and eye the USCAA World Series. On the mound, he says UCC has relied heavily on Day.
According to Bauman, as of early this month, Wiles was batting .333 and leading the team with an on-base percentage of .631 and Day had five wins and was second on the team with 35 strikeouts. At that time, UCC was 10-2 in games since March 11, averaging 11 runs a game during that span.
On Saturday, April 15, Bauman gave a nod to Rayner for picking up a big hit as the Cougars rallied for a crucial win in game two of that day’s doubleheader, allowing UCC to get that all-important split.
“We have confidence our offense will stay hot,” Bauman said while naming Rayner, Stigers and Wiles. “And our pitching staff has a good mix of heavily seasoned veterans like Drew Day … We feel very confident in a strong finish.”
