Cole Zaferakis, Grace Honigford win Clyde Lamb Awards; Wilson named Female Administrator of the Year

By Tim Glon
www.onusports.com

The Ohio Northern women won the 2023-24 Ohio Athletic Conference All-Sports Trophy, while the ONU men finished third, the league office announced Monday night at the 40th annual Clyde Lamb Awards banquet at Otterbein.

Fifth-year senior Cole Zaferakis (Liverpool, N.Y.) and senior Grace Honigford (West Chester/Lakota East) were awarded the prestigious Clyde Lamb Award by the OAC on Monday.

Ten male and ten female student-athletes, one from each of the OAC institutions, have been chosen as the 2022-23 Clyde A. Lamb winners. All 20 recipients were recognized at the banquet.

The Clyde A. Lamb Awards are named in honor of the man who organized the Department of Health and Physical Education at Ohio Northern in 1929. He served as coach, department chairman and athletics director at ONU from 1929-64.

Ohio Northern Assistant Director of Athletics/Senior Women's Administrator Kourtney Wilson was named the BSN Sports Female Administrator of the Year.

Criteria for the award include at least two year's participation in an OAC-sponsored sport, senior status, a minimum grade point average of 3.00 and sportsmanlike conduct in a manner that has brought credit to the student- athlete and his/her institution.

Zaferskis was ONU's men's winner. He was a 5-year starter in goal on the lacrosse squad.

He started all 74 games in his career and holds the ONU career records for saves (591), wins (49) and goalie minutes played (3,782). He also finished with a solid .538 save percentage.

Was named to the Inside Lacrosse.com All-Freshman Team as the nation's top freshman goalie in 2020.

Zaferakis was named All-OAC Honorable Mention as a junior and senior and is a 9-time OAC Defensive Player of the Week.

He earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-District recognition as a senior and was named Academic All-OAC as a junior and senior

Honigford is a four-time All-OAC pick and was Medalist or Co-Medalist of three OAC Championships.

She is ONU's all-time career average leader at 78.02 strokes per round for 83 rounds, which is also a school record.

Honigford also holds school records for 18 holes (68), 36 holes (143), 54 holes (223) and 72 holes (302). 

She also holds the three lowest single-season averages.

This season, Honigford leads the league with a 75.6 average for 23 holes as the Polar Bears are heading into the NCAA III Championships next week

In the women's All-Sports race, the Polar Bears compiled 80 .25 points to defeat second-place Mount Union by 5.75 points for the title.

Ohio Northern has now won the women's all-sports trophy for the third consecutive year and the 15th time overall. The Polar Bears won OAC titles in outdoor track, tennis and golf in the 2022-23 season.

John Carroll won the men's crown with 90.75 points. Mount Union was second with 83.25 points and ONU was third with 80.50 points.