2-sport standouts named Brentwood’s top athletes

By: Ray Fisher
Friday, June 25, 2021 | 8:56 PM

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Nine seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and one freshman landed individual or team honors in 2020-21 at Brentwood.

A video presentation of the annual all-sports banquet sponsored by the Brentwood High Athletic Boosters was created and made available for viewing, at which time the Brentwood award winners were announced.

Steven Bakowski was named the Mark Reider Award recipient, while Sidney Wuenschell won the Booster Athlete Award. The Mark Reider and Booster Athlete awards are presented annually to the top male and female senior athletes at Brentwood.

“My freshman year, I looked my mom in the eyes and told her I was going to win it my senior year,” Wuenschell said, “and I’m happy I did. I loved all four years playing volleyball and soccer. I have so many fun memories in both sports.”

Bakowski and Wuenschell were two-sport athletes in high school.

The 6-foot, 185-pound Bakowski competed as a tight end/defensive lineman on the football team and led the Spartans throwing corps in track and field, particularly in the discus and javelin.

On the gridiron, he was a three-year starter at defensive tackle.

Wuenschell was a three-year letter winner in softball and volleyball. She led the volleyball team in blocks in 2020, served as a co-captain and was named all-section.

In softball, she anchored the Spartans outfield from her center field position.

“This group of girls is probably the best group I’ve been around for a while,” Wuenschell said. “Normally there’s drama and everything, but we all genuinely like each other.”

Two other Brentwood seniors, Bailey Wertz and Riley Brendel, were presented with the distinguished male and female scholar-athlete awards.

Both also earned “most outstanding team member” status, Wertz in cheerleading and Brendel in baseball.

Brendel was a two-sport standout, as a center fielder on the baseball diamond and a forward on the basketball court. He plans to continue his baseball career in college.

Junior Ava Barker, meanwhile, was voted as the most outstanding team member in two sports — girls cross country and track and field.

Other Brentwood athletes lauded as most outstanding included senior Chase Rosing (boys basketball), freshman Mallory Daly and junior Maura Daly (girls basketball), sophomore Mike Umbel (boys cross country), senior Aiden Wardzinski (football) and junior Nathan Ziegler (golf).

Rounding out the list for 2020-21 were senior Heran Pradhan (soccer), junior Kellie Bruschi (softball), senior Nick Milius (boys swimming), sophomore Kyia Duffy (girls swimming), sophomore Carter Betz (boys track and field) and senior Taylor Davis (volleyball).

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