Elmira District Boys Soccer

June 15, 2007 Post Comment By Al Losey alosey@stargazette.com Star-Gazette Repeat winners dominated the conversation in downtown Elmira on Thursday afternoon at a luncheon celebrating the best of the year's high school sports accomplishments. The Star-Gazette and Kiwanis Club presented their female athlete of the year and girls team coach of the year awards to the same people during the groups' annual awards ceremony at the Holiday Inn-Riverview. Notre Dame High School senior Margie McKinery received the Star-Gazette's All-Twin Tiers Female Athlete of the Year award, which goes to the top female athlete in the paper's circulation area. In addition, she was named the Kiwanis Club's Female Athlete of the Year, an award that encompasses the five Chemung County schools. McKinery, who won both awards last year, led the Notre Dame girls soccer team in scoring, was named New York State Class C Player of the Year in basketball for the second straight year, and helped the Notre Dame softball team win the Interscholastic Athletic Conference Division 1 title. She will attend Niagara University. Joining her as a repeat winner was her basketball coach, Robert Kelly, who received awards as the top girls team coach from both groups after guiding the Crusaders to back-to-back state Class C championships. Kelly shared the Star-Gazette Girls Team Coach of the Year award last year. Waverly senior Colin McDonald, who excelled in football, wrestling and baseball, took home the Star-Gazette All-Twin Tiers Male Athlete of the Year award. The two-time state wrestling champion finished second in the state in Division II this year at 171 pounds, was a Star-Gazette All-Twin Tiers pick in football, and the starting shortstop and a pitcher on Waverly's IAC Division 1 champion baseball team. He will attend Cornell University and wrestle for the Big Red. The Kiwanis Club Male Athlete of the Year was Horseheads football player Luke Herrington, who had a record-setting career as a running back and was a hard-hitting linebacker for the Blue Raiders. He'll take his talents to St. John Fisher College in the fall. The Star-Gazette and Kiwanis Club honored two other coaches of the year. Corning East football coach Randy Holden was named the Star-Gazette's Boys Team Coach of the Year. Holden, who announced this week he is stepping down after 21 seasons as East's head coach, led the 13-0 Trojans to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A title. East was the first team in the Elmira-Corning area to win a state championship in football. The Kiwanis Club named Elmira Free Academy boys soccer coach Derek Hamilton its Boys Team Coach of the Year. Hamilton guided the Blue Devils to the Section 4 Class A championship, the team's first sectional title in 17 years. Two other Kiwanis Club awards were presented. Horseheads senior Chris Zelko won the Harp O'Donnell Baseball Award as the top high school baseball player in Chemung County, and Notre Dame junior Emily Pautz won the Junker Johnston Award as the county's best softball player. Zelko, a right-handed pitcher who is headed to La Salle University and will play baseball for the Explorers, showed up with a sling on his non-pitching arm. He had surgery on the left shoulder from an injury suffered during the basketball season. Pautz was represented by her mother but sent a handwritten message that her mom read. The high school junior wrote that she was probably in the middle of the New York State Regents test for math as the awards were being handed out, so she hoped the group would accept her excuse. Outgoing Kiwanis Club President Mike Wayne ended his remarks as the meeting closed by saying: "This meeting shows us that not only are there great athletes in this area, but that these same athletes are great scholars and citizens as well. We wish them well."