The first portion is complete for the new CatchMark SportsNet West Michigan Conference Senior Athlete of the Year awards for the 2023-24 school year.
That was only part of the process, however. The panelists’ votes count, too.
You’re going to have to wait until the CatchMark SportsNet WMC Player of the Year banquet Saturday, June 22, at Whitehall High School, to find out which female and which male will come away with the Senior Athlete of the Year awards.
For the fan polls, Manistee voted like crazy. Manistee’s Libby McCarthy was the top vote-getter on the female side and classmate Braydon Sorenson finished atop the poll on the male side.
The two fan polls combined for more than 20,000 votes. Here are the results:
We identified 10 senior female athletes and 10 senior male athletes from the West Michigan Conference. They were finalists for the Athlete of the Year awards.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. May 20, and closed at 8 a.m. today (May 31). You were allowed to vote once per hour in each poll.
Unlike the CatchMark SportsNet WMC Players of the Year, which are 100 percent determined by fan votes, the Athlete of the Year awards are determined by fan votes and those votes coming from a four-person panel. The panel includes CatchMark SportsNet lead Scott DeCamp and Athlete of the Year sponsors Jordan Durga and Justin Durga (Durga Insurance Group) and Chris Wenk (Century 21 Trophy Class).
All 2023-24 Senior Athlete of the Year finalists and Player of the Year finalists for fall, winter, and spring will be invited to the banquet.
CatchMark is reaching out to Athlete of the Year and Player of the Year finalists for RSVPs for the banquet, which includes a taco bar dinner 5-5:45 p.m. in Whitehall’s Viking Center followed by the awards ceremony 6-7:45 p.m. in the school’s auditorium. The awards ceremony will be livestreamed on the CatchMark SportsNet YouTube channel.
