Athlete of the Year
Tory KempTory Kemp
Just weeks before the state-qualifying meet, GPS senior Tory Kemp suffered a hamstring injury. Any lingering doubts about her recovery were answered when she won five Division II individual state championships, including four in one day. Three days after winning the grueling pentathlon, the North Carolina signee won state titles in the long jump, triple jump, 100-meter hurdles and 300 hurdles. In winning all five events she entered, the state maximum, Kemp also set school records in four events.
“In my 23 years of coaching the sport, Tory has to stand at the top with the best athletes I’ve ever seen,” GPS coach Stacey Hill said. “Sometimes as a senior there’s a tendency to take off a little bit, but she set a school record in the last event she ran [300 hurdles], so that says something about how competitive and driven she is to excel.”
Coach of the Year
Coach Stacey HillStacey Hill
In Hill’s third year since taking over the GPS program again, the Bruisers won every meet in which they competed during the regular season and qualified 18 athletes for the Division II state meet and had competitors in 12 of the 18 events. Seven girls claimed seven first-place finishes as the Bruisers were state runners-up for a third straight year.