Morgan, Probst Mid-Penn All-Stars
by Jim Morgan
FARWELL— Jim Huntley, chairman of the Mid-Penn All-Star ballot, called the process for this year “certainly one of the easiest selections in memory.”
Huntley collects all the information and counts all the votes and when the ballots were in, two Bucktail High School players, Maria Morgan and Chuck Probst, were accorded first-team honors.
All the teams nominate their players and each coach votes from 1 to 5 off the list of players. A coach cannot vote for his or her own players. There are five teams in the Mid-Penn. (Bucktail, Benton, Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech, Millville and St. John Neumann).
For the first time in voting, it was Alize Johnson of St. John Neumann and Maria Morgan of Bucktail who were the #1 choice of all the coaches. To be eligible for first team they must have had three votes and any with two will be Honorable Mention. Chuck Probst of Bucktail was voted on the first team with Johnson, Connor Wylie (Sullivan County), Ethan Lockard (Benton), Justin Zumerling (CMVT) and Richard Allen (St. John Neumann). Honorable Mention: Jared Solomon (Millville).
Probst, a senior, had an outstanding year for the Bucks as he finished with 449 points (20.4 per gm), averaging 43% from the field. On the foul line he finished at 70% (121/172), 57 assists (2.6 per gm) and 3.5 turnovers per game. He finished up with 102 rebounds (4.6 per gm). Probst became the 16th player to join the Bucktail 1,000 point club as he finished with 1,233 points; also hitting his career high of 41 points in a game this season.
The junior Morgan continues to put numbers up that speak for her play on the court, finishing the season for the third straight time over five hundred points. She ended this year with 632 points (27.5 per gm) in which she shot 48% from the field, 71% (104/146) from the foul line. But it is not the points that get Morgan excited about the game, It is the other categories of the game as she dished out 181 assists (7.9 per gm), 124 steals (5.4 per gm) and only turning the ball over 2.2 per game (51). She finished third in rebounding with 136 (5.9 per gm). Morgan is just five points shy of being the all-time scorer in Bucktail history as she stands at 1,763 points in her career. She jumped her own career high points in a game to 44. That’s right Bucktail fans, she is only a junior!
The rest of the first team on the girls’ side are Madi Bower (Millville), Meghan Trenholm (St. John Neumann), Emily Shoulder (St. John Neumann) and Maci Bower (Millville). Honorable Mention: Kaiti Beinlich (Sullivan County), Sarah Stevens (Benton) and Nadia Sciccitano (CMVT). Congrats to all those nominated on their season.
