The Marion County Athletic Association will name its City and County Athletes of the Year next week, an award that dates to 1950 and grew to include girls achievements in 1979.
These awards are geared toward athletic achievement, but almost every winner over the years has exhibited impressive credentials in and out of their athletic, academic and personal areas. Generally, multi-sport athletes are given consideration over single-sport athletes, though in some cases a single-sport athlete has been so outstanding that he or she has been selected as the winner.
Here are the finalists for the City Female Athlete of the Year:
Lily Cridge, Bishop Chatard
Cridge is one of the most accomplished distance runners in state history, winning cross-country state championships as a junior and senior and earning Gatorade Player of the Year honors for cross-country in Indiana in 2021 and ’22.
The Oregon recruit set a state meet record (10 minutes, 3.16 seconds) in the 3,200-meter run to win state as a sophomore in 2021. Cridge won three City titles in cross-country, setting course records for City, sectional, regional and semistate. She also set Indiana’s 5,000-meter cross-country record by 30 seconds with a time of 16:22.81 in finishing second at a national meet in December of 2021.
Cridge helped her team to four cross-country City titles and one sectional championship and was part of four City team titles in track and field. She was named the Indiana girls cross-country runner of the year at the Indiana High School Sports Awards in April
In addition to her outstanding running accomplishments, Cridge is two-year member of the National Honor Society and holds a 3.81 grade-point average. She is the Top Student award winner for theology, physical education and geography. Cridge has plans to continue running and potentially teach and coach in the future.
Cierra Lathrop, Scecina
Lathrop, a four-year letterwinner in volleyball and softball, is an All-City and All-Indiana Crossroads Conference performer in both sports.
In her senior season, Lathrop helped her volleyball team to a regional championship for the first time in program history. She was named academic all-conference and all-state.
Lathrop, the student council president, plans to study nursing and play volleyball at Muskingum University, a Division III program in Ohio.
Dani Newport, Covenant Christian
Newport is a two-sport standout in volleyball and tennis. She was named all-city in volleyball as a junior and senior and in tennis as a senior.
Newport, a member of the National Honor Society, led her team to a sectional title as a junior and tennis sectional titles as a junior and senior. She set program records for kills in a set (10), kills per set (3.33), career kills per match (10.44) and had 1,117 career kills, 736 digs, 76 blocks, including 407 kills, 273 digs and 24 blocks as a senior.
Newport’s volleyball accolades included all-district honors in 2021 and ’22, second-team all-state in 2021 and team MVP as a junior and senior. She was named all-conference as a senior and NCSAA first-team All-American as a senior.
Newport plans to attend Indiana University to study entrepreneurship.
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.
