On Monday, June 17, the Delran Board of Education honored several varsity teams and athletes for their accomplishments over the course of the spring season. The board also discussed the school’s curriculum, personnel and community engagement and said its goodbyes to Burlington County Outstanding Women Celeste Arties Memorial Award winner and student representative, Rose Lloyd-Slifkin, ahead of graduation.
While the student-athlete presentations focused on the varsity teams at the high school, the first team to be recognized was the Delran Middle School varsity baseball team. The team ended the season with a perfect 8-0 record and won the division. The team consisted of two-year starter Mike Shaw, Derek Namnum, Colgan Taffler, Donovan Fey, Matt Wissman, Andrew Madison, Colin Moonblatt, Owen Friddell, Kyle Freeney, Joe Duffield, Nate Husband, Michael Inglisa, Jason Croly, Chase Homan, Austin Perkins, Evan Cloud and Mike Papi, who, in his entire tenure of middle school baseball, has never lost a game.
After the presentation of the Delran Middle School baseball players, the presentations went on to honor the high school’s baseball, softball, track, tennis and lacrosse teams. The baseball team finished with a 18-5 record and won the Patriot Division. Alexander Madera, Gavin Budzyn and Tyler LeRoy received first-team Burlington County Scholastic League honors, Matthew Lubicky, Ryan Howlett, Sean Ahrens and Anthony McFadden received second-team BCSL honors, and R.J. Moten received first-team BCSL honors and was named All South Jersey.
For the first time in 11 years, Delran’s softball team won the Patriot Division and was named Group 2 Sectional Champs. Jenna Casperite, Nicole Travis and Lindsey Cramer received first-team BCSL honors, Jenna Gorman, Ziara Shreter, Marissa Brignola and Kylie Quaker received second-team BCSL honors, and Brooke Acker received first-team BCSL honors and was named All South Jersey.
“It’s important for us to honor our students,” said board President Glenn Kitley. “Honoring our students is something we started to do when Superintendent Brian Brotoschul came on board. We wanted to find out how to get the community more involved in the school. Prior to getting the community to come out for this, next to no one or really angry people would come to the board meeting. Now people come out and it’s a lot more positive.
“More importantly, we want to honor our students because there are so many kids that do stuff and sometimes their accomplishments are overlooked,” Kitley continued. “This time we honored the sports teams because it was the end of the spring sports seasons, but usually whenever someone is honored for anything we like to bring them in and recognize them.
“As the board of education, our job is to create an environment where kids want to come to school,” said Kitley. “We want to recognize every kid’s accomplishment and to teach them that no matter what they do, don’t ever minimize their accomplishments. We want to build self-confidence and self-esteem and we want to motivate these kids. If you recognize their accomplishments, it makes them feel like their hard work paid off and maybe that will be what they need to really launch off and do something special.”
The rest of the athletes at the board meeting who received first-team BCSL honors in their sports included Brendan Depenbrock, Miekel House, Stephen Grello, Tati White, Haylee Adorno, Kaia Eder, Nicole Ucheya and John Ipri.
Second-team BCSL recipients included Nathan Spano, Aiden Butler, Thomas Murphy, Matthew Marcell, Emin Gunaydin, Kesan Ucheya, Kendal Coldren, Emily Fabricante, Allison Duff, Anise Howard, Madelynn Duffield, Jordan Day, Michael Digney, John Bagonis, Ethan Theurer, Collin Koehler, Thomas Wissman, Aidan Bohnsack, Sean McHugh, Dane Sabarese, Victoria Rolon, Larissa Hatzold, Caitlin Locke and Madeline Taffler.
