Seniors end prep careers on top

The Powell High School Year End Athletic Awards Night ended Monday with the naming of seniors Riley Stringer and Jenni Ebersberger as the PHS senior male and female athletes of the year.

The announcements came following a variety of awards handed out to Powell’s fall and winter athletes, as well as several scholarships. Because spring sports are still underway, award winners for those sports were not yet named.

Stringer, who competed in football, wrestling and track and field this school year, earned the honor after another big year as a prep athlete.

Stringer helped the Panthers to a 5-4 record and a berth in the Class 3A football playoffs despite playing the entire season with an ankle recovering from a severe break last summer. In February, he won his second straight 3A state wrestling championship as a heavyweight, competing through regionals and state with a screw from his repaired ankle moving around in his foot.

Stringer’s success becomes more impressive considering his father, former PHS football coach Jim Stringer, died in July 2014.

Tuesday’s award meant that much more to his son because of that.

“I was really honored and I’m very blessed,” Stringer said. “I know that for my dad, it was his dream for me to get [Athlete of the Year] when I was an underclassman.

“I knew it was going to take a lot of hard work and dedication. I really felt like I earned everything, and I worked as hard as I could for it.”

Stringer’s efforts on the football field earned him a position on the University of Wyoming football team as a preferred walk-on this fall.

PHS head wrestling coach Nate Urbach spoke of Stringer’s athletic career to a full PHS commons before presenting Stringer with the award.

Ebersberger accepted the award following big seasons on the Lady Panthers’ volleyball and basketball teams. Ebersberger was a key component in PHS volleyball’s 32-3 season which ended with a third-place finish in the 3A state tournament.

She also paced the Lady Panthers throughout the basketball season despite playing most of the year with a broken left pinky finger. In PHS’ 3A state championship game against Lovell in March, Ebersberger scored a game-high 21 points to send the PHS girls to their first-ever state basketball championship in a 58-52 win over Lovell.

“I thought it was cool to go out with such a bang with the basketball team ... that was a highlight for high school. It’s an honor to be athlete of the year,” Ebersberger said. “A lot of people have asked me, ‘How does it feel?’ but I don’t have a good enough answer because it wasn’t all me; it was a team effort. I couldn’t have done it without the team I had or the coaches I had.”

One of those coaches, PHS girls basketball head coach Scott McKenzie shared his thoughts and memories of Ebersberger with the crowd before presenting Ebersberger with her award.

Ebersberger’s big game against Lovell will be her last in organized sports she said. Ebersberger plans to start her trek toward a degree in medicine at Northwest College in the fall before moving on to UW, and has no plans to pursue further athletic participation.

But in retrospect, Ebersberger had plenty of positives to look back on, and she said winning the Athlete of the Year award alongside Stringer was just as rewarding as the award itself.

“He is just incredible, I don’t know if I could go through the adversity he has gone through,” she said. “He showed everyone how tough he is.”

For Stringer, the respect was mutual.

“I think everybody saw it coming ... she definitely earned and deserved it,” he said. “I was honored to be up there with her.”