WP Athletes Lauded

WAITSBURG -- In at least two ways, the 2012 Waitsburg Prescott winter sports season set a major milestone, coaches said at last Thursday's awards gathering for WP cheer squad, wrestling and girls basketball teams.

The girls basketball team won the district title again and all of the four WP wrestlers made it to the regional tournament.

"It was a tremendous season," head basketball coach Jerry Baker told his players and their parents at the high school auditorium. " The standard has been set pretty high for girls basketball."

The basketball awards for WP boys will be awarded at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 15, at Kison Court.

The Lady Cardinals accumulated a winning 16-4 record and became district champions two years in a row.

"That doesn't happen that often," Baker said. "That's a big achievement for these girls."

Kristin Potter won the Steals Leader award with an average 4.3 steals per game. Ronnie Hulce was the Top Free Throw performer, making 71.2 percent of her shot attempts. Krystal Harris led in assists with 3.8 per game. The High Point award also went to Hulce. Harris, Hulce and Potter all were selected for the First Team All Conference.

Vickie Hamann took the awards gathering as an opportunity to thank her cheerleaders, awarding Most Improved status to Ixel Sanchez, Most Inspirational to Meara Baker, Most Valuable Person to Shayla Rowlette and the Coach's Award to freshman Bailey Edwards. Baker and Edwards also received Scholar Athlete recognition.

Hamann said it was a challenging year because of the overlap of the championship football season and the start of the basketball season.

Head wrestling coach Lanny Adams said his team, the first of its kind for WP, had a lot of firsts. With four wrestlers, it ended up being a smaller team than program managers had anticipated, but the entire team made it to the regional competition, he said.

"You have to start somewhere," Adams said.

Making it to regionals is quite an accomplishment for a first-year program like WP's, he said, particularly because the intensity level at that competition can be very challenging.

Gabe Escalante won the team's first match in the season, while Dalton LaRue had the fastest pin in 17 seconds.

LaRue was selected to win Most Valuable Player and Most Inspirational, while Escalante got Most Improved.