Gary Dudgeon
All of the team sports are finished; the tennis balls have been put back in the cans and the clubs come out for a casual round of golf now. We’ve identified the top athlete for all three schools and all three season.
To review the selections for North Decatur, Stephen Speer was the Male Athlete of the fall, Sarah Wallpe was the Female Athlete of the Fall, Katie Gahimer and Alex Pulskamp were Athletes of the Winter and Ben Wenning and Kendra Fasbinder took the laurels for the season just past.
Of the six athletes listed above, two performed in just one sport, two played in two sports and two lettered in three sports.
The single sport athletes were Alex Pulskamp and Kendra Fasbinder. Of all six honorees, Kendra took her game to the highest level by qualifying for the state track meet. She definitely had the most outstanding season. But the title of this award is Athlete of the Year and with few exceptions, the award goes to the athletes who participated in all three seasons, unless, their performance is truly outstanding in any one sport.
Fasbinder comes closest to meeting the exception criteria.
Ben Wenning also had an outstanding spring with outstanding offensive and defensive statistics in the most demanding position of all position players - catcher. He performed well enough to earn honorable mention All-State.
The other two-sport winner was Katie Gahimer who was No. 2 on the golf team last spring and Most-Valuable on the basketball squad in the winter. But our nod still goes to the three-sport athletes - Sarah Wallpe and Stephen Speer.
Wallpe’s presence was felt in volleyball, basketball and softball. During the volleyball season, she was injured for a spell and the team’s performance during that stretch suffered from her 6’1” presence at the net. Her height again made itself known during basketball season where nearly every team they faced usually had its defenses stacked to keep Wallpe off the boards. The defense limited Wallpe but opened up lanes that the rest of the team could exploit in a season that ended in the morning round of the regional with a record of 16-9.
This spring Wallpe played first base just as she has for the last four seasons. A consistent hitter, out standing base runner and run producer in the middle of the line-up, Wallpe was a team leader on a senior dominated team.
Speer’s resume for his senior season reads much the same.
During football season, he was a running back on offense, a linebacker on defense and performed the kicking chores. That meant that he was on the field for nearly every play. His performance between the lines, his 245 pounds on a 6’3” frame drew the attention of colleges and led to his signing a letter of intent to attend Marian College next season where he will likely be playing defensive end.
The large frame also left him in good stead on the basketball court where he was able to keep opposition rebounders away form the boards, power the ball to the hoop on offense and keep opposition pivot men bottled up defense.
His spring season was spent on the quarter-mile oval where he again used the combination of strength and decent speed to throw the shot and run on relay teams, a combination that is unusual most of the time but was a model for all three Decatur County schools.
At the East Central sectionals, Speer led what was close to a Decatur County sweep of the top five spots, Only South Ripley’s Thadeus Fleming’s fourth-place finish broke the county’s stranglehold on the those spots. At the regional meet in Connersville, Speer added another three inches to his 51’2 1/2” he threw at the sectional but he came up two feet short of qualifying for the state meet.
For their consistent and long careers in three different sports, the Daily News is proud to recognize Sarah Wallpe and Stephen Speer as its Female and Male Athletes of the Year for North Decatur.
