Athletes bring home awards, scholarships from WNC Sports Awards Banquet

May 13—Two three-sport athletes and one aspiring sports broadcaster brought home awards and scholarships from the WNC Sports Awards Banquet on Sunday, May 7, at the Gove Park Inn in Asheville.

Barker wins academic awards

Pisgah High School senior Kennedy Barker won the Blue Ridge Imaging Technologies Division I Female Academic Award.

"I learned about a week before that I was a finalist for the award," she said. "I was so excited, although I was the most excited that my whole basketball was nominated for an award."

Barker said her hands started to sweat when she and her fellow nominees stood in anticipation of the award's winner being called up to the stage.

"I was so nervous," she said. "I'm standing up in front of all of these great athletes, and everyone was deserving of that award. When they called my name, I thought, 'Oh my goodness, I can't believe I just won that.' I won that for Pisgah and the whole community."

Barker is the number one ranked player for the Pisgah tennis squad, an all-conference performer and advanced to the regionals in doubles last fall. She is also a key player on the Pisgah basketball team and helped the Bears win the conference championship this past season.

To top it off, Barker is the all-time leading scorer on the Pisgah soccer team and has been an all-conference standout for the past two years.

She has a 4.67 weighted GPA and is ranked second in her class. She attended the North Carolina Governor School last summer.

Barker has committed to studying at UNC-Chapel Hill this fall. She plans to major in biology, minor in public health and attend medical school after graduation.

"Chapel Hill has always been my dream school, but the atmosphere and the academics and the whole life of the school sets it apart from any other university," she said.

Barker will also be in the Honors Carolina Program, a collection of courses, special events and learning opportunities geared toward the top students at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Barker credits Pisgah's academics, athletics and community for helping her find success.

"At Pisgah, one of the core values is hard work and perseverance, especially through everything that has happened to my class and the community," she said. "Those are two things I'll take with me through the rest of my life. It's the embodiment of what the Canton community is."

Rinker earns scholarship

Tuscola High School senior Eva Rinker won a $1,500 scholarship from the Mountain Amateur Athletic Club.

"I'm really grateful because it helps a lot with the financial side of school," Rinker said. "It's really nice that I got this to help."

Rinker is a do-it-all runner who signed her letter of intent to attend West Virginia University next fall to compete on its cross-country team.

In cross country, she's been the No. 1 player on the team for three consecutive years. In 30 races, she's come in first 11 times, second six times and third once to make the podium 18 of 30 attempts (as of November 2022).

She's a three-time all-conference runner, a two-time all-region runner and a three-time state meet qualifier. Rinker was 65th in the state as a sophomore, 19th last year, and will run in the state meet this Saturday.

In track and field, she was the No. 1 400, 800, 1600 and 3200-meter runner on the team. She was all-conference last year, finishing first in the 800 and the 1600 races. She won regional honors by finishing first in the 800 and anchoring the 4x400 and 4x800 to fourth place. At state, she finished third in the 800-meter run at the 3A state championships.

Rinker is secretary of the Math Club, vice president of the Spirit Club, and a member of the National Honor Society, Unified Sports, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Student Government at Tuscola.

Smalley wins broadcasting scholarship

Tuscola's Evan Smalley won the first-ever Pat Ryan Memorial Scholarship.

Ryan was a popular radio sportscaster at WISE Radio who hosted a local daily sports talk show for over 17 years. He died last November at 57 after a lengthy battle with cancer. A scholarship in his honor was created thanks to an anonymous donation.

The scholarship is to help an aspiring sports broadcaster.

Editor's note: Evan Smalley could not be reached for comment by press time.