Athletes of the Year: 20 Hall County athletes honored in ceremony at Gainesville Civic Center on Tuesday
May 9—While a handful of Hall County high school sports teams are still competing this spring, the 2023 Times Athlete of the Year banquet and ceremony Tuesday at the Gainesville Civic Center seemed like an appropriate punctuation to the 2022-23 school year as it draws near an end.
With 20 stories of excellence in each individual sport, plus an address by Gainesville native and 1973 Masters champion Tommy Aaron, about the only suspense left was which two of the honorees would take home the ultimate prizes.
The answer came in the form of Boys Athlete of the Year and East Hall wrestler Caleb Pruitt and Girls Athlete of the Year and Chestatee basketball standout Riley Black, who rode separate waves of domination in their sports throughout the school year.
The honors came as a surprise to both honorees, though each began to get an idea it would be them when their feats were described to the gathering of approximately 150 athletes, coaches, family and friends.
For Pruitt, who was also named boys wrestling Athlete of the Year by posting a 59-0 record en route to the Class 4A state championship in the 285-pound weight class, it was the perfect end to a literally perfect season.
And that ending was an entire year in the making.
"As soon as I heard (the word) undefeated, I figured it was probably me," said the senior, who was also a standout offensive lineman for the Vikings' football team and is set to graduate and head to Reinhardt University on a wrestling scholarship in the fall. "It's exciting. This year's campaign started last year, when I finished second (at the state meet). This year was all about just keeping my composure, being myself (and) wrestling me, going out and attacking and doing everything through God and my family pushing me."
As with Pruitt, Black's ascension to the Hall County's top high school athletics honor was more than just this season in the making.
After being named the Athlete of the Year for girls basketball during her sophomore season, the 5-foot-8 guard took her game to an even higher level for her junior campaign in 2022-23, averaging 24 points and 11.5 rebounds per game in leading the Lady War Eagles (23-8) to their first region championship in nearly a decade and their first state quarterfinals appearance in program history.
She acknowledges that this year's county-wide honor sets the bar even higher for her senior campaign next year, a challenge she says she plans to embrace.
"I'm excited to represent our county," Black said. "I'm very proud to be a part of this sports community in Hall County. I feel like it's really strong and growing. ... It does (set the bar higher), but I'm really excited. One more year.
"Winning the region (8-4A) championship (is the most memorable event of the season). I can't get over that. It was awesome. (Chestatee girls basketball) Coach (Sutton) Shirley and the team, we're still so close. ... I'm just so excited to keep on going."
The list of individual sport Athletes of the Year had a familiar look to it for 2022-23, with seven of them — Black, Gainesville's Jeremiah Telander (football), North Hall's Clodagh O'Bryant (girls cross country), Cherokee Bluff's Alisa Pressley (girls golf), North Hall's Ella Kate Canaday (girls tennis), Cherokee Bluff's James Rivenbark (boys tennis) and Johnson's Jorge Sandoval (boys soccer) — all repeating the honor from last year.
Another interesting sidenote to this year's Athlete of the Year class is that of the eight seniors honored in it, five of them — Telander (Tennessee), Gainesville's boys cross country runner John Jessup (Georgia), Cherokee Bluff baseball player Bryce England (Georgia Southern), Cherokee Bluff boys swimmer Dean Wall (South Dakota) and Flowery Branch girls soccer player Sarah Greiner (Tennessee) — will be going on to compete at Division I college programs in the fall.
