Milton’s Holley MacLellan has been named the Vermont high school girls soccer player of the year for the 2024 season, Gatorade announced Wednesday morning.The senior is the first ever girls soccer player from Milton to win this award which recognizes athletes for their on-field success, high academic achievement and exemplary character.More: Colchester star named Vermont’s best boys soccer player by Gatorade

The 5-foot-5 midfielder and forward led Milton to a 17-1 record in 2024 that ended with a state championship. MacLellan scored 27 goals including both goals in 2024 the D-II championship game and dished out 14 assists. MacLellan is a two-time state girls soccer champion helping the Yellowjackets win back-to-back Division II championships in 2023 and 2024.

The senior was the only Vermont girls soccer player to be named a 2024 United Soccer Coaches All-American and will be continuing her soccer career at Stonehill College in the fall.

“Holley is the most complete player in Vermont girls high school soccer,” Mount Mansfield coach Dustin Hess said in a press release. “She has all of the physical and mental skills to dominate and lead. She’s excellent on the dribble, can find brilliant passes, can shoot any time and is willing to do the work on the defensive side of the ball.”

Besides her talents on the soccer field, MacLellan won another state championship as a member of the Burlington/Colchester girls hockey team in 2024.

MacLellan has maintained a 4.34 weighted GPA in the classroom. Outside of athletics, the senior is a member of the National Honor Society (NHS) and Math Honor Society. MacLellan also serves on the school’s athletic leadership council. She has volunteered locally as part of multiple community service initiatives in association with the NHS.

As part of Gatorade’s commitment to breaking down barriers in sport, every player of the year also receives a grant to donate to a social impact partner.

To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com.

Contact Judith Altneu at jaltneu@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.

High school sports coverage is very intense during the school year. There is only a small window between when one school year ends and the next school year begins. The Western Wayne News sports department will be taking a short break before summer and fall sports kick in. Before we do, we will recap some highlights from the 2025 spring sports season. This is not designed to be a comprehensive list of each and every event. It is more of a highlight reel of the spring season. The spring season for Wayne County athletes ended with the regional round of the IHSAA state golf tournament. 

Baseball — The four Wayne County rural schools have held a Wayne County baseball tournament for many years. A decision was made to discontinue it this season. Hagerstown repeated as the Tri-Eastern Conference champion in baseball. Hagerstown, Northeastern and Richmond all posted winning seasons, and Lincoln won 10 games, the most wins for the program in a decade. There were several no-hitters recorded. Tyson Tremain pitched two for Seton Catholic. Tremain no-hit Purdue Poly on April 3 and Liberty Christian on April 30. The Hagerstown all-freshman foursome of Jayke Troutwine, Kaden Hall, Heath Johnson and Fletcher Callahan combined to no-hit Muncie Burris on April 12. Centerville’s Chase Clark no-hit Tri High on April 15. The Lincoln duo of Dustin Lunsford and Braxton Dick no-hit Union on April 17 and the Lincoln duo of Ben Bates and Oliver Webb no-hit Seton Catholic on April 23. No Wayne County baseball team won a sectional. Kaagen Kendall, a left-handed pitcher from Hagerstown, was selected to play in the North-South All-Star baseball games by the Indiana Baseball Coaches Association. 

Golf — Centerville established a new school record for nine holes on May 19, when they posted a score of 153 in a win over Franklin County. Hagerstown won the Wayne County tournament and Northeastern won the sectional preview tournament. Northeastern also won the sectional for the first time in school history. Their sectional-winning score of 311 was a new Northeastern school record. Brady Moore from Centerville was the sectional medalist with a score of 69. Moore and teammate Boston Beatty both advanced to the regional as individuals. No Wayne County team or individual golfer qualified to advance to the state finals from the regional.

Tennis — The Centerville Lady Bulldogs continued their domination of Tri-Eastern Conference tennis. The program, coached by Randy and Susie Ecker, repeated as the Tri-Eastern Conference champion and as the Richmond sectional champion. It was the first time in program history that every Centerville player entered the TEC tournament finals match as the number one seed and won at every position to win the match 5-0. The Lady Bulldogs also swept the sectional championship match 5-0. For Makenna Hartman (No. 1 singles), Kylar Marshall (No. 2 singles), Ellie Cox (No. 3 singles), Myleigh Hartman and Madi Frakick (No. 1 doubles) and Natalie Hemlin and Kami Johnson (No. 2 doubles), it was their 12th shutout win of the season. 

Softball — Like the baseball tournament, a decision was made to discontinue the Wayne County softball tournament in 2025. After winning the Tri-Eastern Conference last season for the first time in program history, Hagerstown repeated as league champion in 2025, extending their TEC regular season win streak to 17 games. Hagerstown went on to win its first sectional in program history. Lincoln also won a sectional championship, their eighth in program history, but forfeited their regional game the next week. Centerville sophomore Madison Yount and Hagerstown seniors Allison Stinson and Rylan Young were named first-team all-state by the Softball Coaches Association. The Hagerstown duo of Young and Aaliyah Anderson combined to no-hit Morristown on April 21. The Northeastern duo of Makayla Hopkins and Hailey Elsrod combined to no-hit Richmond on April 28. Young and Yount both recorded perfect games during the season. Young pitched her perfect game against Cowan on May 13. Yount pitched her perfect game against Knightstown on May 15. Yount also established a new Centerville record for home runs in a season with nine. Stinson and Young were selected to play in the SCA North-South Softball All-Star games. 

Track and field — The Hagerstown boys won the 42nd annual Tiger Booster Invitational for the 11th consecutive year and the Wayne County meet. Centerville won the Wayne County girls meet. The Seton Catholic girls won the 12-team Park Tudor Invitational. Both the Richmond boys and girls teams won the 12-team Dean Stoltz Memorial Invitational in Eaton, Ohio. The  Richmond girls team was crowned the North Central Conference champion and Hunter Lambright was named NCC Coach of the Year. Sixteen Wayne County girls advanced from the sectional to the regional, but none of the regional qualifiers advanced to the state finals. 

Antione West from Richmond set a new sectional record with a time of 10.96 in the 100 meter as 15 Wayne County boys advanced from the sectional to the regional, with three advancing from the regional to the state finals. Maddox Pritchett from Centerville advanced in the long jump. Masson Heiny from Richmond advanced in the discus and Jacob Lindahl from Richmond advanced in the shot put. Lindahl was the only one of the three to make the awards podium, finishing seventh to earn a medal. 

For the first time since 2008, New Jersey high school baseball had an undefeated team. And to the surprise of some, it was a public program.

Gov. Livingston came into the season riding the success of a 2024 Group 2 state championship, but took its talents much further than just another state title. It ended the 2025 campaign without a single loss, forever etching themselves into N.J. baseball lore.

Row, row, rowing boats is what the Rochester Rowing Club (RRC) is all about. But they don’t row gently down the stream.

For the last 35 years, the rowing club has been using Silver Lake as a place to practice its perfectly synchronized strokes.

The club was founded in 1990 by Bill Pavlicek, Doug Burninger, Keith Laughman, Chris Chute and Jeff van Fossum. Pavlicek, who lived on the banks of Silver Lake, was the club’s first president. He recruited rowers and bought two mahogany racing boats from Columbia University in New York.

Since then, the RCC has expanded from racing in regional regattas in small numbers to including a junior rowing program and recruiting young rowers who have won at international competitions. In 2004, a team of four RRC women rowers including Cadence Nelson, Kristin Haraldsdottir, Megan Britson, Lucy Krusel, and coxswain Meg Flannery — coached by Bob Krentlerwon — won bronze at the U.S. Rowing Youth Nationals and won the Groton Cup at the Women’s English Henley regatta.

Currently, the RRC has a varsity and junior varsity team that is open to rowers in grades seven to 12. The junior varsity team practices three to four days a week while the varsity team practices five to six days a week throughout the year. The club also offers sessions in the summer for interested students and offers adults the chance to row recreationally or compete in regional regattas.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

“We are trying to build up our adult team and have seen an increasing interest in the past two years,” says former RRC president and current board member Binnur Taner. The club is unique in that it offers both junior and adult programs that allow student athletes to return and join after high school or college.

Taner’s children Ilkim and Biricik have both rowed for the Rochester Rowing Club. “The sport itself demands discipline and resilience, which are critically important for social development,” says Taner. “Over the past several years, our rowers have competed and received medals at many regattas. Just this year, we (sent) eight of our 10 varsity rowers to represent the club at this year’s National Youth Championship in Sarasota, Florida.”

The National Youth Championship took place on June 14-15, 2025, and the Rochester Rowing Club’s varsity quad placed seventh in the nation. The club’s second varsity quad placed also placed seventh in the B Final.

Michelle Vogl is the current head coach for the club. She attended the University of Minnesota and was part of its team in 2001.

“I absolutely love being around, on, or in water,” she says. “I love how unique the sport of rowing is and how challenging it is.”

Vogl joined the club in April of 2023 and is part of the club’s adult team which has its own coach. She became the club’s head coach for its junior program in June of 2024. She currently has 10 rowers on the club’s varsity team and nine rowers on the junior varsity team.

Vogl’s team has competed at events from Minneapolis to Ohio and from Florida to Ontario. “I am thrilled that eight of our rowers qualified for nationals,” says Vogl. “We are small, but mighty.” This is the second year that the club has sent eight female rowers to nationals.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

When Vogl prepares her rowers, she incorporates aerobic and anaerobic workouts, strength training, long rowing pieces to build stamina and short sprinted pieces to prepare for races. She says her rowers learn physical and mental endurance, pain tolerance and discipline. She says that rowing together in a boat also teaches team members how to work together as one unit. “I love helping the kids succeed and reach their goals,” says Vogl. “It is fulfilling to see their skills and confidence grow. It has also helped me to become a better rower myself.”

Sasha Ting is a 16-year-old and one of the club’s team captains. She joined the team when she was in eighth grade in 2021. “Some people might think there isn’t a lot to love about a sport that was originally used as a form of torture,” she says. What keeps her coming back is the sense of accomplishment. “When the boat’s moving together, and you can actually feel the power and glide of each stroke, it’s just a really cool feeling,” she says.

Ting is one of the rowers who competed at nationals. She competed in a quad boat along with Kara Garvey, Miriam Daire and Elyse LeQuire. Ting says that she and her teammates do a good job of balancing “competitiveness with actually enjoying the moment.”

LeQuire who is 17 years old, joined the club during the pandemic. “I was tired of sitting around,” she says, adding that “rowing is a unique sport that trains you physically and mentally, and it is super fun.” Though she says rowing requires grit, she also says the sport is inclusive. “This sport is accepting of everyone, and we work our hardest to make everyone feel included and like they belong.”

“With my boat, we have had a long collective goal of qualifying for nationals, and we have that goal in mind with every practice,” says LeQuire. “It is such an amazing feeling, knowing that we earned it and worked for it.”

Abbey Holm, 17, is another team captain for the club. She started rowing in 2020 when she was just completing seventh grade and also qualified to compete at nationals. Though Holm says that rowing has taught her work ethic, time management and not giving up, it’s clear that it is also a source of humor and joy for her. “We have a good luck charm,” she says, “it’s a plastic goose we dressed up in bandanas, American girl fall sunglasses and jewelry, his name is ‘Jack’ (after our favorite goose at silver lake), and we take him to every regatta.”

Open communication and hard work are both required to make the RRC successful. As Ting puts it, “no matter how strong you are, the boat won’t move right unless everyone’s completely in sync.”

Learn more about Rochester Rowing Club at

rrcmn.org.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin