2011-12 NMU sports award winners

MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University held its annual Hall of Fame and Student-Athlete Awards Banquet on Saturday night, featuring every NCAA team except soccer, which was on the road for a spring tournament.

Matt Granstrand’s crew missed out on some free dining services’ grub — Surprise, the same menu from my college days of salad, pasta salad, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies and veggie lasagna! — as well as a banquet that lasted three hours, or four if you include the social hour.

While in theory, it’s great to get all of NMU’s student-athletes and the hall of fame inductees — only two of the four were present — in one place at one time, but in practice, people got impatient and fidgety.

Three awards were handed out for each team including Most Improved Athlete, Newcomer of the Year and MVP, except for track and field.

Tom Barnes won longest presentation by sneaking in a bunch of other awards and in the process, I lost track/zoned out with everything he was doing.

I also missed a cross country award. I guess I was as easily distracted as the student-athletes — 27 years old going on 12.

Here’s your award winners. Note this doesn’t include some of the special awards that hockey and football like to hand out. Those will be given at a later date I’m told.

Women’s basketball

Most Improved: Lauren Gruber

Newcomer: Alyssa Colla

MVP: Chelsea Lyons

Men’s basketball

Most Improved: Spencer Huss

Newcomer: Haki Stampley

MVP: TJ Cameron

Cross country

Newcomer: Larissa Halonen

MVP: Mandy Dye

Football

Defensive Newcomer: Wyatt Jurasin

Offensive Newcomer: Josh McNeil

Defensive Most Improved: Morgan Stenz

Offensive Most Improved: Julian Gaines

MVP Offense: Carter Kopach

MVP Defense: Matt Forward

Hockey

Most Improved: Ryan Daugherty

Newcomer: Jake Baker

MVP: Justin Florek

Note: The Most Improved Award itself actually read Jared Coreau, but Walt Kyle announced Ryan Daugherty. Oops.

Nordic Skiing

Men

Most Improved: Ben Hugus

Newcomer: Kjell-Christain Markset

MVP: Erik Soderman

Women

Most Improved: Molly Burger

Newcomer: Felicia Gesior

MVP: Marie Helen Soderman

Swimming

Most Improved: Annie Bengry

Newcomer: Emily Brennan

MVP: Debbi Lawrence

Soccer

Most Improved: Kylee St. Arnauld

Newcomer: Kim Rietveld

MVP: Becky Schmidt

Volleyball

Most Improved:Kalli Herron

Newcomer: Kalin Zimmerman

MVP: Emma Wolfe

Guido Canale Senior Awards

Female: Bailey Franklin

Male: Justin Florek

NMU Athletes of the year

Female: Chelsea Lyons

Male: Erik Soderman