The North Bay Spartans basketball club held their annual awards banquet at The Grande Event Centre on Sunday evening. Awards were given out to deserving players on the 5 boys and 5 girls rep teams that competed in the Ontario Basketball Association.
The club’s highest honour is the male and female Spartan of the Year awards. This year’s male recipient was Sid Nayak. Sid, a grade 11 student at St Joseph-Scollard Hall, was selected as an Ontario Basketball League All-Star and hit the game winning 3-pointer with 20 seconds on the clock to lead his U17 boy’s team to a division 2 bronze medal at the provincial championships last weekend in Sault Ste. Marie.
Zenna Hilliard was named the female Spartan of the Year.
Zenna, a grade 11 student at Widdifield Secondary School, led her U19 girls Spartan club after suffering a significant hand injury last season that required surgery.
U19 girls head coach Tim Lowe also recognized Zenna with the Dedication and Perseverance award.
Mike Mitchell, Spartans President, also credits many of the coaches for their level of commitment to the program.
"We are so fortunate to have volunteer coaches, we have very few parent coaches," said Mitchell.
"We have a lot of young people that are graduates of the program coaching and they are volunteering countless hours and driving countless miles across the province to coach these kids and to have boys and girls in the same association cheering each other on and coming together like this and I think that is rare in minor sports and we are very happy to see that."
