Grade: Junior
Sport: Track and field
Event: 100 high hurdles and 300 low hurdles
Nominated by: Head coach Tim Leonard
Signature moment: Heeding some key advice from Leonard during the Marauders’ meet against Fishers at the beginning of the month, Davis proved she would be able to contribute points for Mt. Vernon all season. Davis ran the second-fastest time on the team in 300 hurdles and won the JV race and was promoted to varsity, where she finished third against Yorktown on Tuesday.
Coach’s take: As a junior competing in her first season on the team, Leonard was not expecting much from his inexperienced hurdler.
“All of our girls count. All of our girls matter,” he said. “ But you look around (at the beginning the year), and you start figuring who’s really going to help us. When I looked at her, I thought, “Oh, she’s going to be JV. … But cream rises to the top.”
“She started out really at the bottom of the list of the hurdlers, and now she’s moved to our second-best high hurdler and our second-best low hurdler. She did it just with having a great heart and being coachable and having a great attitude. She’ll just do exactly what you tell her to do. She works on exactly what you tell her to work on, and she doesn’t revert back to bad habits.
“She’s a girl that’s kind of not a vocal leader. She’s more of a leader by action. She’s not going to tell you how good she is. She is going to show you. Talk is cheap, and so far this year she has shown me she’s a varsity hurdler.”
