GRAHAMSVILLE – Tri-Valley Central School District Secondary School presented their varsity athletic awards on Tuesday evening, June 18 in their auditorium. The student-athletes gathered for dinner in the upper gymnasium at 5 p.m. before heading over to the auditorium for the award ceremony at 6 p.m. 

Athletic Director Kevin Crudele welcomed everyone to the banquet and thanked the many people involved in making the student-athletes successful. In his opening remarks, Crudele highlighted a portion of Tom Brady’s speech at his Hall of Fame induction into the New England Patriots Ring of Honor that he felt resonated with his athletes. 

“The truth is, you don’t have to be special,” the speech said. “You just have to be what most people aren’t - consistent, determined and willing to work for it. No shortcuts.”

“That last line, I think, really defines our athletes,” said Crudele. “They are determined and willing to work. The times that I heard about offseason training, coming in and working out, wanting to come into school early and wanting to stay late. It really shows the dedication that our coaches and our athletes show.”

Starting on the soccer pitch, Coach Deirdre Hallinan presented three awards for Boys Varsity Soccer. 

Kristoff Guanzon earned the Most Improved Player (MIP) award, Logan Weyant won the Coaches Award and Shayden LaForge was the team’s Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Coach Kayla Connolly and Coach Andrea McGregor presented three awards for Girls Varsity Soccer. 

Emily Rusin was selected for the MIP award and Riley Kelly won the Coaches Award. Coach Connolly selected an Offensive MVP, Kendall McGregor, and a Defensive MVP, Joyce Brooks. 

Next up we head to the gridiron where Coaches Kevin Crudele, Chris Russo and Chris Russo Jr. presented three awards. Defensive Player of the Year was awarded to Colin Monell, Offensive Player of the Year to Josh Fanslau and MVP to Misha Khodakovski. 

Coach Jenifer Edwards presented awards for sideline cheer in football and sideline cheer in basketball. For football cheer, Lilliana Morton-Curry and Dallas LaPolt were both honored with an MVP award while the two Coaches Awards went to Rainn Edwards and Abby Ruef. 

For basketball cheer, Abby Ruef was presented with the MVP for winter sideline cheerleading. 

Next up was Varsity Cross Country with Boys Coaches Chip Furman and Travis Wolfe presenting three awards and Girls Coaches Tyler Eckhoff, Skylar Musa and Wolfe presenting three awards to the girls runners. 

The Boys Coaches Award was given to Craig Costa, the MIP Award to Noah Edwards and the MVP to Van Furman. For the girls, Amelia Mickelson was presented with the Coaches Award, Em Richardson with the Rookie of the Year and Anna Furman with the MVP. 

Now onto the basketball court, Coaches Jason Closs, Skylar Musa and Timothy Dymond presented three awards for girls’ basketball and Coach Kevin Delaney presented three awards to the boys’ team. The girls had a Beast Award which was presented to Riley Kelly, a Coaches Award to Emily Rusin and MVP to Jenna Carmody. The boys had two MVP awards which were Matt Fanslau and Misha Khodakovski and a Coaches Award was given to Austin Swett. 

Coach Jenifer Edwards then came back on stage with her competition cheer team to award the MIP to Izzy Ryan and MVP to Lilliana Morton-Curry. 

For wrestling, as part of the Fallsburg/Tri-Valley team, Coach Andrew Foertsch awarded John Mingo with the MIP award and Lorenzo Haffner with the MVP. 

Fallsburg/Tri-Valley/Liberty skiing coach Janet Carey presented a Coaches Award to Brandon Huggler, an MIP to Santino Haffner and MVP to Grace Gozza for the Tri-Valley portion of the combined ski team. 

Onto indoor track, Van Furman was presented with the Coaches Award, Kane Poje was the MIP and Craig Costa was the MVP for boys varsity indoor. For girls varsity indoor, Lily Siciliano won the Coaches Award and Anna Furman was named the MVP. In a special new award, Kendall McGregor was presented with the School Record Award as she tied the Tri-Valley school record in the 55 meter dash which was last set in 1998, broke the Tri-Valley school record in the 300 meter dash with a time of 45.21 seconds and broke the Tri-Valley school record for the 55 meter hurdles with a time of 8.72 seconds - a record that stood since 1997. 

In outdoor track, Coach Eckhoff presented two Rookie of the Year awards to his boys runners, one to Yan Zheliazouski and the other to Kane Poje. Connor Weyant was presented with the Coaches Award and Van Furman was the MVP. For the girls, Coach Musa also had two Rookies of the Year in Ally Chevalier and Molly Van Etten. Dakota Evans was awarded the MIP and Kendall McGregor was the MVP.

Coaches Kevin Crudele and Christopher Russo presented three awards for varsity baseball. The Coaches Award was given to Bryan Rogerson, the Defensive MVP was Colin Monell and the Offensive MVP was Austin Swett. 

For softball, Coaches Kimberly Costa and John Rusin presented an Offensive Player of the Year award to Jenna Carmody, Defensive Player of the Year to Abigail Mentnech and Coaches Award to Emily Rusin. 

Coach Michael Langway presented boys varsity golf awards and Coach Bethany Hamilton presented girls varsity awards. The boys MVP was Brandon Huggler, the MIP was Misha Khodakovski and the Coaches Award was given to Alex Uciechowski. For the girls, Abby Ruef was named MVP, Grace Gozza was awarded the MIP and NuoYan Li was presented the Coaches Award. 

AD Crudele came back up to present the senior awards to conclude the ceremony. 

First up was the Iatauro Award, given to athletes to play 12 consecutive seasons in a sport. There were six Iataruo Award winners - Craig Costa, Amelia Mickelson, Riley Kelly, Colin Monell, Abigail Mentnech and Emily Rusin. The Sportmanship Award was presented to Amelia Mickelson and Austin Swett. The Perseverance Award was given to Riley Kelly and Colin Monell and the two Outstanding Seniors were Kendall McGregor and Craig Costa.