Kicking off the VanDyk Mortgage West Michigan Conference Player of the Year series

Montague’s and Oakridge’s football seasons are still alive as the Wildcats and Eagles vie for regional titles this weekend. But, for the most part, West Michigan Conference falls sports are in the books at this point (Nov. 11, 2021).

What better time to introduce an exciting and new CatchMark SportsNet series than now?

We present: The VanDyk Mortgage West Michigan Conference Players of the Year.

In fall, winter and spring high school sports seasons, three player of the year candidates for each sport in the West Michigan Conference will be nominated by the CatchMark panel consisting of Scott DeCamp, Brent Raeth and Zach Zweigle.

In the next step, we’ll publish a story for each sport on CatchMarkSports.com that will inform readers about the nominees and their season stats and achievements.

After that, fan polls of all sports will be released in one story on our site. That’s where readers will determine who earns player of the year recognition, choosing from the candidates nominated by our panelists. Readers will be allowed to vote once per hour for as long as the poll remains open, time frames which will be announced.

Once players of the year are determined by fan votes and announced by CatchMark, we will invite the winners to our office in downtown Whitehall for an awards presentation and honorary dinner. A trophy that stays in our CatchMark office will have the names of the players of the year engraved on it.

Starting Friday, Nov. 12, stories will begin to be released on our site for each sport to give readers background for whom they’ll be voting. Football will kick it off, followed by volleyball, boys soccer, girls golf, boys cross country, girls cross country and boys tennis.