Tabor wins her second athlete of year award in three years
Just because a high school athlete wins an Athlete of the Year award one year doesn’t mean she will win it the following year. And just because she didn’t win it last year doesn’t mean she will not win it this year.
Madison Tabor should know that better than most people. For the second time in three years, the Greenport High School senior was named an Athlete of the Year by The Suffolk Times on Thursday.
Tabor, who played field hockey and basketball, had received the honor two years ago as a junior. Last year the award went to Toni Esposito. This year it was Tabor’s time again. She became the sixth Greenport girl to win the award twice in the 33-year history of the awards. Two Greenport girls had received the award three times — Kim Volinski (2005, 2006, 2007) and Elaine Milovich (2001, 2002, 2003).
Tabor was honored along with the other top female and male athletes from six high schools by Times Review Media Group, which publishes The Suffolk Times and the Riverhead News-Review.
The other recipients in The Suffolk Times’ coverage area are first-time winners, including Mattituck’s two state champion wrestlers, seniors James Hoeg and Tanner Zagarino, who were named co-winners. It is the first time that the Mattituck male athlete award has been shared.
Also winning from The Suffolk Times’ coverage area were: Greenport senior Jake Skrezec (football, wrestling, baseball), Mattituck senior Melanie Pfennig (cross country, winter track, spring track), Southold junior Haley Brigham (soccer, winter track, spring track) and Southold senior Dylan Clausen (soccer, baseball).
A Shoreham-Wading River girl had never received an Athlete of the Year award more than once from the Riverhead News-Review before Katherine Lee came around.
Lee first received the honor as the 2014-15 recipient. Last year the cross-county and track and field standout became the first SWR girl to duplicate the feat. This evening the junior made it a three-peat when she was once again honored.
Lee became the third athlete in the Riverhead News-Review’s coverage area to win the award three times, joining elite company in Meg Tuthill of Bishop McGann-Mercy (2014, 2015, 2016) and Ellen Dougherty of Riverhead (2002, 2004, 2005). Should Lee win the award yet again next year from the paper, she will become the second athlete to do so four times in the 33-year history of the awards. Greenport’s Ryan Creighton (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) is the only four-time winner.
The other winners recognized by the Riverhead News-Review are all first-time winners.
For the fourth time in 13 years, co-winners were selected for the SWR male athlete of the year: seniors Chris Gray (football, lacrosse) and Brian Morrell (baseball).
The Riverhead winners were junior Kim Ligon (field hockey, basketball, softball) and senior Eric Cunha (cross country, winter track, spring track). Two seniors represented Bishop McGann-Mercy: Siobhan Merrill (soccer, winter track, lacrosse) and Sean Tuthill (golf, basketball, baseball).
The awards were presented at Times Review Media Group’s headquarters in Mattituck.
Photo caption: Dylan Clausen and Haley Brigham of Southold; James Hoeg of Mattituck; Jake Skrezec and Madison Tabor of Greenport and Sean Tuthill and Siobhan Merrill of Bishop McGann-Mercy. (Credit: Kelly Zegers)
