The University of Guelph’s attraction to quality international athletes was on display at the university’s Athletic Department’s Awards Ceremony in their event facility/main gym.
Two of the main awards for the varsity teams’ 2023-24 season went to international students as hockey goaltender Martina Fedel of Italy was named the female athlete of the year and soccer player and human kinetics student Harvey Marchant of England was presented with the President’s Trophy as male student-athlete of the year, an award that takes into account both academic and athletic prowess.
Fedel, a third-year Gryphon and animal biology student from Trento, Italy, couldn’t attend the function as she’s the No. 1 goalie for the Italian national team that’s competing in the six-team women’s world championship Division 1-group B tournament. Top team in the tournament gets a berth in next year’s top group that includes the Canadian national team.
The female-athlete-of-the-year win by Fedel ends a run of six consecutive victories of the award by track athletes. The last non-track athlete to win was fellow hockey goaltender Valerie Lamenta for the 2015-16 season. Her win is also the sixth time it has gone to a member of the women’s hockey team.
Male Athlete of the Year Max Davies of Toronto easily fit into the university’s trend of the 2000s for the award as his win made it the 14th time a track and field athlete won the award since the start of the 21st century. It had only been won once before that when Al Claremont won it for his performances in the 1956-57 season.
“This was a big breakthrough year for me,” Davies said. “I've been struggling with injuries in my past year, so this was the first year where I was very confident. Training was consistent and everything kind of, I'm not going to say went perfectly, there was obviously hiccups, but I just did everything to the best I could and it ended up paying off. So it was a big breakthrough year for me and I'm very proud.”
It worked out so well for Davies that he won three gold medals at the U Sports championship meet, taking both the men's 1,000 metres and 1,500 metres in record time. He also ran the anchor-leg for the Gryphons’ winning men's 4x800m relay team.
Marchant was the winner of the President’s Trophy (male) for the second time in three years as he also won it in 2021-22, but was a finalist for the award in 2022-23, something that gave him inspiration for this season.
“That's exactly what it did,” Marchant said. “So, you know, I knew my grades were there, it was just a matter of getting a good soccer season under my belt again and here we are.”
While Marchant is one of the top players on the Gryphons men’s soccer squad, it was academics that brought him to Guelph in the first place.
“I really wanted to balance the academics and the sports,” he said. “The U.K. tends not to be able to do that quite as well as they do in Canada and the States. The fact that the coach, Keith (Mason) is English, immediately we hit. We had that connection and ever since it's like I've been his adopted son. You know, I couldn't have asked for a better man to take me out of this way. That’s primarily the reason.”
The President's Trophy for female student/athlete of the year went to Trinity Papamandjaris from London, Ont., a third-year member of the women’s basketball team and bio-medical science student. She transferred to the U of G after two years of NCAA play with the Robert Morris University Colonials of Moon Township, Pa. It was the second consecutive year the award was won by a basketball player as MacKeely Shantz was last year’s winner.
“I really went into this year with the mentality that I wanted to just put my best foot forward, knowing that it was my last year,” Papamandjaris said. “So, I had a career high this year. I recorded a few double-doubles, which I'd never done before. So I was really proud of myself and especially the work I put in in the off-season to get to the point I was at the beginning of the season. I really bought into all the strength and conditioning that we did and got in good shape so that I could be my best on the court.”
She also aimed at being her best in the classroom.
“I've had a lot of good professors and I've really enjoyed my program here,” she said. “One of the reasons I chose to come to Guelph was all the opportunities I could have academically and extracurriculars as well that helped me. I've always been good at applying myself in the classroom, so I kept that up -- log study hours on the road and just putting in the time where I could. And that really translated to the outcome that I got, but I've really learned a lot which is really important as well.”
W.F. Mitchell Sportsman of the Year award went to men’s rugby player Kobe Faust, a marketing management student from Uxbridge. He also missed the event as he was at Hong Kong competing with the Canadian men's seven-a-side team in an international tournament there. It also meant he didn’t participate in the men’s rugby team’s annual tradition of dressing up in costumes for the ceremony.
W.F. Mitchell Sportswoman of the Year was women’s hockey player Hannah Tait from Exeter, a management academics and finance student who was a member of the Canadian team that competed in World University winter games in Lake Placid in 2023.
Other major awards winners were women’s golfer Jacqueline Giles (Fred Ramprashad Award), men’s volleyball player Josh Glasbergen (Don Cameron Award as three-year most improved male athlete), women’s soccer player Christina Gomes (Shirley Peterson Award as three-year most improved female athlete), men’s soccer player Jacob Cabral (Scott Yanchus Male Rookie of the Year), hockey player Reese Coffey (Dr. Mary Beverley-Burton Female Rookie of the Year), event emcee and P.A. announcer at most Gryphon varsity sports home games Sean Furfaro (Dr. John T. Powell Award for contribution to Gryphon sports), Olivia Morgan of the football team (Gunner Obrascovs Trainer of the Year), Hallee Woodard of the rowing team (Cathy Rowe Manager of the Year), Nike Abiodun of the women's track and field team (Student-Athlete Mentor Award), Kathryn Chapman (strength and conditioning "CARE" Award) and the men’s volleyball team for the team’s return to the national championship tournament for the first time in 36 years ("Gryphie" Moment of the Year).
