Listen Here
By Dylan DeWitt
Email: dewittd@findlay.edu
Twitter: @dd_witt
Every year, the University of Findlay athletic department awards a top male and female student athlete of the year. The award is known as the Mancuso Award and it honors the individuals based on a wide range of criteria in which the student athletes demonstrate on and off the course. Some of these include academic and athletic achievement, community and sport, along with the ability to demonstrate integrity and sportsmanship.
The award is named after Iggy Mancuso, one of the highly successful wrestling coaches in Findlay program history. For this academic year, two outstanding athletes have been chosen to be honored as the 2017-2018 Mancuso Award winners. The award winners are All-American Volleyball Player Amanda Winner and GMAC Player of the Year and All- American Basketball Player Taren Sullivan.
Winner put up an outstanding year this year during her junior season of volleyball. She ended the year with a total of 490 kills, 30 aces on her serves and a team high of 537 points across the entire season. She is currently sitting in the top ten of program records as well after surpassing the 1,000 kills milestone this past year. Some of the most notable UF records she currently holds are sixth of all time in kills with 1294, averaging 3.34 kills per set. She is also eighth of all time for most service aces and has the potential to reach the 1,000 digs milestone in her final season. The pre-physically therapy major also gets it done off the playing surface as she maintains a GPA of 3.80 while volunteering in the community.
Taren Sullivan arguably put together one of the best senior seasons in program history. The male athlete of the year was able to join the 1000 point club throughout his career where he ranks 12th all time for most points in a career with 1,595 points. He has made the fifth most field goals in program history along with being named multiple individual honors. Sullivan was awarded DII All-Midwest Region honors to go along with his First Team NABC/NCAA DII All-American honor. He is only the sixth player in school history to receive this honor, and first since the 2010-2011 season. The strength and condition major not only helped the Oilers team reach the Sweet Sixteen this year, but spends his spare time helping out with the Special Olympics and Findlay City Schools.
UF Director of Athletics Brandi Laurita is also extremely proud of these two student athletes and believes they are well deserving of the honor. According to Findlay Athletics, Brandi Laurita stated, “These two student-athletes truly exemplify what it means to be an Oilers. Amanda and Taren have had great success on and off the court and are truly outstanding individuals who do a tremendous job of representing our University”.
