Related: To see our profile on Ben Kerr, click here. To read about Alana Mader, click here.
There was a common thread connecting Iola High’s football and volleyball teams this season.
Both had plenty of doubters entering 2023.
The football team had won only two games in 2022, largely due to an uncanny knack for seeing multiple starters on the sidelines due to injury on a weekly basis.
And the young volleyball squad went 6-24 last season, as the Mustangs struggled to find consistency.
“I don’t think people were giving us much of a shot,” junior volleyball star Alana Mader said.
That all changed this fall.
The volleyball team racked up 22 wins this year, advancing to the Class 3A Substate quarterfinals, while Iola’s gridiron club won four games, tying for first in its district standings in the process, while knocking off traditional powers like Girard and Prairie View.
They had one other connection, as it turns out.
Senior Ben Kerr, who earned All-Pioneer Second Team honors at running back and linebacker, and the aforementioned Mader earned first-team All-League honors.
With that, the IHS duo was voted the Register’s October Male and Female Athletes of the Month.
Voters tapped Mader by a razor-thin margin. She received 110 votes, while the Crest High cross country team of Aubrey and Kaylee Allen, Peyton Schmidt and Josie Walter received 106 votes. Humboldt volleyball standout Shelby Shaughnessy was third, receiving 55 votes.
The voting was competitive on the boys side as well. Kerr received 109 votes, compared to Humboldt’s Kyler Isbell and Marmaton Valley’s Dreden Ellis, both of whom received 80 votes.
Each of the honorees will receive a free specialty pizza courtesy of Rookie’s, which sponsors the Athlete of the Week voting.
