Moore earns MVP award for Owls soccer team

“This was the year for the Seymour Owls,” head coach Wil Smith said during the boys soccer awards program on Tuesday night at the school’s cafeteria.

“We had set goals at the beginning of the year and accomplished most of them,” he said.

This year’s Owls soccer team had nine seniors. One of those seniors was Devon Moore, and he received the most valuable player award.

Moore began when he was a freshman, helping the Owls defeat Columbus North in the sectional finals that year. This year, he was part of the team that defeated Brown County in the sectional finals.

Moore received his four-year varsity award, the outstanding midfielder award, was named to the all-Hoosier Hills Conference first team and was chosen for the first team on the Indiana Soccer Coaches Association district team. Moore and fellow senior Aaron Brown will play in the soccer showcase on Nov. 21 and 22.

Joining Moore on the all-HHC first team are Brown, Daniel Koester and Reid Martin. Those chosen for the second team were Ethan Brown, Kory Wait and Austin Edington. Martin was chosen as the top team player by the ISCA.

Seymour and Columbus East were co-champions in the HHC, compiling a 6-1 conference record.

“Effort from this team brought us this far this year,” Smith said. “Winning sectional was good, but winning the conference was big. We have a lot of talent on this team, and we had a great year. We had a great season and slipped up in the last game of the year and it really hurt.”

The Owls finished with a 14-5 record and the junior varsity team finished with a 3-6-2 overall record. Also, the Owls tied a school record with 14 wins and set a school record with 12 shutouts. The Owls concluded their season with a 4-2 shootout loss to New Albany in the regional finals.

Receiving other awards for the Owls were Koester winning the outstanding forward award, Aaron Brown capturing the outstanding defender award and Wait winning the most improved award for his solid effort on defense.

Wait, Koester, Ethan Brown, Aaron Brown, Jake Townsend, Luis Ferrer, Logan Goins, Cole White and Braden Sciarra were named to the ISCA All-District Academic Team. To be considered for the honor, a senior athlete must have a 3.6 grade point average and a junior athlete must have a 3.7 GPA. The team’s total GPA this year was 3.4.

Smith also handed out the first-year varsity awards to Sciarra, Edington, Wait, Clayton Abbott, Nathan Pyle, Fabian Scholz, Pedro Botto, Andrew Bailiff and managers Brandon Davis and Josh Morris. Earning their second varsity award were White, Blake Stein, Jason Kincer and manager Chelsea Richards.

Martin, Koester, Ethan Brown and Blake Dye received their third-year award, and Aaron Brown, Goins and Moore earned their fourth-year award.

For the junior varsity team, coach Andy Wolka presented the most valuable player award to Scholz of Germany and Botto of Brazil.

“The junior varsity was a learning year this year,” Wolka said. “The games we won, we outworked our opponents.”

Also helping the Owls from the sideline this year was assistant coach Rusty Bailiff.