This year’s crop of amazing athletes made selection of the Record/NOWhigh school athlete of the year a difficult one.
New Westminster Secondary graduated three of the front runners, including track star Raquel Tjernagel, who was named this year’s top high school athlete.
Not far behind were two worthy members from the New Westminster Hyacks varsity football team.
Offensive lineman Harper Sherman, the No. 2-ranked player in Canada, was named a provincial and all-conference AAA all-star. Sherman earned an athletic scholarship to NCAA Division I University of Arizona.
Matthew Seymour was also named to the provincial and all-conference AAA teams at wide receiver. Seymour turned down a number of scholarship offers from Canadian schools for the opportunity to play Div. I ball at the University of Ohio.
Two-sport athlete, Tyus Batiste, from Burnaby South is a quality guard for the 4A varsity Rebels basketball team. Batiste also played soccer at a high level and helped out coaching the junior boys’ basketball team.
J.J. DesLauriers from St. Thomas More Collegiate was both a provincial and all-conference AAA wide receiver for the football Knights and a starter on STM’s AAA basketball team that went to the provincials. DesLauriers is a freshman at Simon Fraser University this season with the Clan football team.
Kieran Janes from STM is another provincial and all-conference AAA offensive lineman in football. Janes will play his post-secondary ball at the University of Western Ontario. He also played AAA basketball with the Knights.
Jermaine Haley of Burnaby South was a top Canadian prospect and courted by more than 30 U.S. Division I schools. He committed to Div. I New Mexico State University. Haley was named a provincial second team all-star.
Multi-sport athlete Amie Morrison from Burnaby South earned a women’s field lacrosse scholarship to Div. II Tiffin University.
Allyson Dickson from Burnaby North Secondary played HPL soccer with championship Mountain United, where she was named the game MVP in the under-18 girls’ provincial final. She also won the Golden Boot award as the top scorer at the 2014 B.C. high school AAA soccer championships. Dickson is attending SFU, where she is currently a freshman midfielder with the women’s varsity team.
Lauren Bondi from Notre Dame Regional School earned an NCAA Div. II scholarship in basketball with Smith College, a private liberal arts institution in Massachusetts.
