Versatility was clearly the ingredient that separated Christian High’s Tyrone Sauls and Scripps Ranch’s Maggie Sevilla when it came down to who would be chosen as the San Diego Section’s Athletes of the Year Saturday at the 5th Prep Athletes Award Gala at the San Diego Hall of Champions.
Sauls and Sevilla were joined by a rare achievement when both Student-Athletes of the Year, Alli Billmeyer and Matt Carpowich, came from the same school, Torrey Pines High.
Two longtime veterans, El Capitan baseball coach Steve Vickery and Mt. Carmel’s Monique Lamphiere-Tamayoshi, were selected as the 2010-2011 Coaches of the Year.
A crowd of more than 250 attended the annual event.
The 6-foot-2, 225-pound Sauls, who will be leaving to attend the Air Force Academy in a week, was selected the Small Schools Player of the Year by CalHiSports after he rushed for 1,759 yards and 29 TDs in addition to catching passes worth another 243 yards and two more scores.
Sauls was also one of the top linebackers in the state as he was credited with 93 tackles. This spring, Sauls showed his versatility as he captured the section shot put title at 58-feet, 2 ½-inches and in the winter he started on the Patriots’ basketball team.
At the Air Force, he will play fullback.
Similarly, Sevilla, who will attend the University of Pittsburgh on a softball scholarship, played three sports and excelled in each.
A defender, she was named the Player of the Year for field hockey in the fall after leading her school to three titles in four years. In the winter it was on to the soccer field where she was an All-League performer and in the spring Sevilla earned All-Section first team honors in her favorite sport—softball.
While she enjoys playing all of the sports, she will focus on softball where she is a catcher.
Both were also candidates for the Student-Athlete award but Billmeyer and Carpowich’s grade point averages were slightly higher. Both will be attending Stanford University in the fall.
Billmeyer, who posted a 4.13 GPA, had a quality cross country season, finishing third in the state in Division I after helping lead the Falcons to the state title as a junior.
It was this spring, however, where she separated herself from the field as he not only maintained that glittering GPA, but captured section titles in the 1,600 and 3,200 en route to finishing second in the state in the 1,600 at 4:41.71, collecting her second section record after claiming the 3,200 standard at 10:18.92 in the Palomar League finals.
Carpowich, with a 4.09 GPA, also had outstanding cross country and track seasons.
He was one of the section’s best in cross country despite this being just his second season of running the sport, finishing fifth in the section and ninth in the state championships.
Moving onto the track, Carpowich won the section 1,600 and went on to finish fourth in the state in a seasonal best of 4:07.21.
Not only did Vickery and Lamphiere-Tamayoshi have sensational seasons, they added on to their legacy for their career. The El Capitan team handed Vickery his 600th win during the season and he guided them into the section Division III title game, where they dropped a narrow 3-2 decision to Cathedral Catholic.
Lamphiere-Tamayoshi collected her 11th section title in 17 years at Mt. Carmel and her third in a row this past season.
In all, more than 100 athletes were honored.
