Winning a state championship was not a prerequisite to being a finalist for Times Free Press Scrappy Moore Female Athlete of the Year in 2024, but it certainly helped.
Five of the six finalists either led their team to a state title, won an individual crown or did both.
The winner of the award will be announced during Tuesday’s Best of Preps awards banquet at the Chattanooga Convention Center, which begins at 6 p.m. The guest speaker will be University of Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler, an All-Southeastern Conference selection who helped the Volunteers reach the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight this past season.
(READ MORE: Vols star Zakai Zeigler will be Best of Preps banquet speaker)
The six finalists are Silverdale Baptist Academy’s Ella Cunningham, Bradley Central’s Kimora Fields, Cleveland’s Piper Fowler and Lauren Hurst, Baylor’s Riley Oleksik and Dalton’s Grace Ridley.
Cunningham led the Silverdale Baptist softball program to its second straight TSSAA Division II-A state title while ranking among the nation’s leaders with 368 strikeouts in 192 1/3 innings pitched. The Michigan State signee also batted .485 with 17 home runs and 55 RBIs, helping the Lady Seahawks to a 50-3 record this year.
Fields has been a key to Bradley Central’s resurgence atop the state’s basketball hierarchy. She averaged 23 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals as a sophomore this past winter while helping the Bearettes repeat as Class AAA champions to win the program’s eighth TSSAA state title overall.
Powered by the two-time all-state performer’s inside presence, Bradley Central is a combined 69-2 over the past two seasons, with only one loss coming to an in-state opponent. The Bearettes ended this past season with 20 straight wins, all by double figures, and they outscored their three state tournament opponents by an average of 22 points.
Fowler, the bedrock of the Cleveland girls’ wrestling program, is not only a three-time individual state champion whose 64-0 record in high school includes 63 pins, she is a reigning world champion. The nation’s second-ranked pound-for-pound girls’ prep wrestler, Fowler recently earned her second straight U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Nationals title, winning at 160 pounds in the under-17 division, and she will represent the United States while competing for her second straight world championship this August in Jordan.
She was named the most outstanding wrestler at the TSSAA girls’ traditional state tournament in February after pinning her four opponents in 28 seconds, 12 seconds, 27 seconds and 47 seconds. Her junior season also included helping the Lady Blue Raiders sweep the team state titles in traditional and duals competition for the second year in a row.
Hurst, a 6-foot-3 multisport star, has established herself as one of the nation’s top college prospects in both basketball and volleyball with her senior year still ahead.
In volleyball, she helped Cleveland repeat as the Class AAA champion this past fall, with her 27 kills in the title match giving her 773 for the season and helping her earn the state tournament’s MVP honor. She has also been recognized by Gatorade as Tennessee’s player of the year in that sport each of the past two school years.
In basketball, she is ranked as the nation’s No. 47 prospect and has more than 40 scholarship offers from Division I programs, including seven from Southeastern Conference schools, after averaging 15 points, 10 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 1.6 blocks per game as a junior.
Oleksik finished her prep softball career having helped Baylor win a Division II-AA state title in each of her four seasons, with the Lady Red Raiders’ streak of consecutive championships reaching nine at last month’s Spring Fling. The Eastern Kentucky signee was Baylor’s catcher and batted .519 with 61 RBIs this year while tying the program’s single-season record with 19 home runs. In basketball, she averaged 18 points and more than two 3-pointers per game as a senior.
Ridley was a two-sport star at Dalton, becoming a McDonald’s All-America nominee after averaging 17 points and 14 rebounds per game in basketball as a senior and signing with the University of North Georgia. In volleyball, she totaled 425 kills and 298 digs this past fall. She helped the Lady Catamounts reach the GHSA Class AAAAA state semifinals in both sports.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com.