Fall Athletics: Individual sports reap postseason honors

To say that the individual sports at Douglas High School accomplished something special this fall would be somewhat of an understatement.

The Tigers swept the three female individual titles (girls' golf, girls' tennis and cross country) and the girls' golf team won the regional and Sierra League titles and came in second at state.

Tiger senior Whitney Lindsey won the regional cross country title and took state runner-up honors at the championship meet over the weekend and Tiger freshmen Bethany Wurster and Amelia Ritger won the golf and tennis titles respectively.

Keagan Chipp and Robert Shawhan became the first male qualifiers for the state tennis tournament in more than 20 years, and Derrick Jenkins became the first male qualifier for the state cross country meet since 2001.

Coaches around the region recognized the Tigers' individual achievements when they released the postseason honors lists over the weekend.

Douglas girls' golf coach Steve Gustafson was named the region's coach of the year and Wurster earned region player of the year honors. She also garnered a first-team all-league mention as well.

Katie Gettman, Michelle Nikkels and Heather Henderson were all named to the first-team all-region squad in golf while Gettman and Henderson were first-team all-league honorees and Nikkels and Shelby Louie were second-team all-leaguers.

Lindsey was named first-team all-region and was voted the cross country female athlete of the year for her efforts this season.

"I am so proud of her and all that she accomplished," Douglas coach Keith Cole said. "Whit and I have been working together for three years now and it's been a pleasure having her on the team and seeing her excel like this."

Junior Taylor Biaggi earned second-team all-region honors and qualified for state for her third consecutive season, placing 10th there.

"Taylor had another outstanding race and a tremendous finish to the season," Cole said. "She dropped a minute and 10 seconds from the previous week. I've never seen a drop like that before between the regional and state races.

"She confirmed this year that she is one of the top runners in the state and I am very excited to have her coming back for her senior season."

One surprise came in the form of Ritger, who earned first-team all-region honors for her undefeated freshman year but not win player of the year honors.

This was seemingly by pattern in tennis as that award went to regional runner-up Hannah Llop, and it also went to the runner-up on the boys' side, Jimmy Roberts. The doubles' players of the year awards also went to the regional runners-up. In all of the other individual fall sports, it went to the regional champion.

Seniors Lauren Seymour and Sarah Barnhill earned all-region honorable mentions for their play as a doubles team this year.

On the boys' side, Chipp and Shawhan both earned all-region second team honors as a doubles team, and honorable mentions as singles players.

Shawhan made the all-state academic team for the third consecutive season, Andrew Solomon made it for the second time and Alex Sunderland was a first-time honoree.

Shawhan and Chipp shared the team MVP award this season while Aaron Wennhold was named the team's most inspirational player and Tim Doran was named the most improved player.