Led by the district-champion Wildcats and Lady Tigers, the four area teams won a combined seven of a possible 12 individual awards and earned numerous first-team selections.
The Belton girls led the bunch, nearly duplicating their awards haul from last season. Chelsea Jones was voted Most Valuable Player, Erica Michaud was selected Offensive MVP and Barry Elkins was Coach of the Year. Michaud and Elkins repeated as award winners.
On the boys side, Temple senior Sean Coles won his second straight Offensive MVP award and Matt Corley was Coach of the Year.
Belton earned a pair of awards, highlighted by junior Josh Caffey’s MVP and Newcomer of the Year Manuel Amaya.
The awards repeat for the Lady Tigers certainly wasn’t a surprise. Belton’s girls swept through 13-5A play en route to a fourth straight district title. The Lady Tigers finished the season with a 25-3 record, losing in the Region II quarterfinals for the third straight year.
Jones scored a team-high 33 goals to go with 20 assists in her junior season. She has already committed to play at Texas A&M.
“She had a career year, especially coming back off a knee injury,” Elkins said. “Sometimes we forgot she had that knee injury. She had a phenomenal year.”
Jones, along with Michaud, helped the Lady Tigers break their single-season scoring record with 114 goals.
Michaud, a Texas State signee, set a pair of team records as a senior on her way to Offensive MVP. For the season, she scored 30 goals and added 14 assists.
Michaud scored 104 goals and had 76 assists in four seasons.
“She also had a phenomenal year,” Elkins said. “She pushed all year long.”
Belton’s first-team selections were Kacy Green, Michelle Hagen (the 2007 MVP), Kali Hellinghausen, Alyse Ritchie and Tori Seiler.
Temple, which finished fourth in 13-5A and lost in the first round of the playoffs, had three first-team selections - leading scorer Marissa Cervantez, Shereen Rabie and Sam Kirchhoff.
On the boys side, 13-5A had two players deserving of the MVP honor - Caffey and Coles. But it was Caffey who got the coaches’ nod.
Caffey earned his first MVP award after leading the 15-8-1 Tigers to a second-place finish. Belton’s lone district losses came at the hands of rival Temple.
Caffey led the Tigers with 31 goals.
“Josh played very hard and had a good year,” Belton coach Tarcisio Mosnia said. “He had a good year as a player and he helped us out a great deal.”
Top newcomer Amaya, a sophomore goalkeeper, moved to Belton from Durango, Mexico before the start of the school year and joined the team during the Round Rock Tournament.
“He was a surprise,” Mosnia said. “He’s a serious type of player; he does his own little thing. I knew he had it in him because of his seriousness.”
Coles, Temple’s goal-scoring machine, scored a school-record 48 goals as a senior, leading the Wildcats to the area round of the playoffs and a 21-3-3 record.
“I’m glad he got Offensive MVP,” Corley said. “But I’m somewhat disappointed that he didn’t get district MVP. I thought he should have.”
First-team selections for Temple were dominated by the Wildcats’ high-scoring offense, while Belton’s selections were led by the Tigers’ defense.
Temple’s first-teamers included forward Ryan Staten, midfielders Brad Lawrence, Logan Nance and Tyler Schneider and defender Chase Moore.
Belton’s first-team selections were forward Vincent Crepeau and defenders Christian Bass, Cade Carlson and Michael Shepherd.
rschneider@temple-telegram.com
