Highland inducts second Hall of Fame class

By ROB HAMILTON

High­land inducted their sec­ond Ath­letic Hall of Fame class Sat­ur­day afternoon.

A total of 11 Scots were named to the Hall this year — one con­trib­u­tor to the pro­grams, three ath­letes from the pre-consolidation Chester­ville, Marengo and Sparta schools and seven for­mer High­land athletes.

The con­trib­u­tor named to Highland’s Hall of Fame was coach Jerry Bower, who coached at the junior high level for 35 years (35 for bas­ket­ball, 17 for foot­ball and 10 for track). He also coached high school junior var­sity foot­ball for 11 years.

Ken Throck­mor­ton, a 1928 Sparta grad­u­ate, played bas­ket­ball for that school and then, after grad­u­at­ing col­lege, returned as a coach and teacher. In his first year as Sparta’s head coach, he became the first coach in Mor­row County high school bas­ket­ball his­tory to go unde­feated. He also coached at both Chester­ville and Marengo dur­ing his career.

Chesterville’s Lynn Gilt (1952) had arguably the great­est game in the his­tory of Mor­row County foot­ball in 1951. While play­ing on Chesterville’s six-man team, he scored 50 points in a con­test with Cale­do­nia; mus­ter­ing six touch­downs and seven two-point con­ver­sions. He scored 112 points that year to lead the county. He also played bas­ket­ball and base­ball in high school.

Don Givens (1962) played four years of bas­ket­ball under coach Mar­vin Curry — at Sparta AND Marengo. He spent his first two years at Sparta and moved to Marengo after Sparta lost its state char­ter. He aver­aged 13.9 points per game as a Sparta sopho­more before get­ting 15.6 and 18 points per game as a junior and senior, respec­tively, at Marengo. During his senior sea­son, the Wild­cats won both the Mor­row County League and the Knox-Morrow League.

High­land grad Don David­son (1968) became his school’s first-ever all-league and all-state per­former in foot­ball. As a senior, he scored 16 touch­downs and 112 points — a High­land single-season scor­ing record that lasted until 1985. He also earned all-league and all-district hon­ors as a catcher in baseball.

Larry Squires (1977) earned a total of seven let­ters between base­ball, foot­ball and bas­ket­ball. He report­edly was the first High­land ath­lete to earn first-team all-league hon­ors in the three sports in the same year. As a senior, he earned recog­ni­tion from the league, dis­trict and state as a foot­ball defen­sive end; from the league and dis­trict while aver­ag­ing 15 points a game in bas­ket­ball and pitched 25 straight score­less innings in base­ball as a senior pitcher/infielder.

Belinda Cre­means Pinker­ton (1983) was the first female High­land run­ner to win the same two events in the Mid-Ohio Con­fer­ence meet for four straight years, as she claimed the 800 and 1600 con­sis­tently through­out her high school career. She also earned all-state recog­ni­tion in cross coun­try as a sophomore.

Jim Gray (1986) is regarded as Highland’s first real threat as a throw­ing quar­ter­back. As a junior, he led the team to their first league cham­pi­onship. He fol­lowed that up by throw­ing for over 1000 yards for the sec­ond straight sea­son as a senior to lead the team to a 9–1 record (cur­rently tied for the best regular-season record in school his­tory); which helped him get named the AP Cen­tral Dis­trict Back of the Year. He also earned league and dis­trict recog­ni­tion in basketball.

Shel­ley Squires Hornsby (1988) report­edly was the school’s first 12-letter win­ner, as she earned four each in vol­ley­ball, bas­ket­ball and soft­ball. She also earned all-district recog­ni­tion in all three sports and spent five years as the head coach for the High­land soft­ball team — the sport she says was her best in high school.

Lori Hilton Mack (1992) played vol­ley­ball, bas­ket­ball and track. She also went on to be a four-year vol­ley­ball let­ter­win­ner at Bowl­ing Green State Uni­ver­sity. In high school, she earned hon­or­able men­tion state recog­ni­tion in that sport. She also qual­i­fied for the state meet in the high jump as a fresh­man and made mul­ti­ple regional appear­ances in track. She also earned all-state recog­ni­tion in bas­ket­ball her senior year after aver­ag­ing 15.8 points per game.

Amanda Knapp (1994) left High­land as the school’s all-time scor­ing leader in bas­ket­ball (a mark that stood until 2010). She fin­ished her career with 1027 points and was first-team all-state as a senior when she aver­aged 19.7 points for the 19–4 Scots. She also was a three-year let­ter­win­ner in vol­ley­ball and softball.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Jan 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.