North Callaway Braydn O’Neal and Ellie Bedsworth will be playing on a college diamond next year but had nice senior seasons to look back on.

The pair were named to the 2023 Jerry Schoppenhorst award winners as the multi-sport athletes were deemed the top male and female athletes for North Callaway this year. O’Neal plans to play baseball for Columbia College, and Bedsworth is set up to play softball for Westminster College in Fulton.

In his second straight Chop-award-winning season, O’Neal was a leader at a prime position in each sport as he was the quarterback in football, point guard in basketball and shortstop in baseball. In football, he was an all-conference defensive back and quarterback as he threw for 1,640 yards, 22 touchdowns and 11 interceptions on 114-for-232 passing and ran for 1,088 yards and 13 TDs on 181 carries. During the Thunderbirds’ first district champion basketball season since 1999, O’Neal ran the offense all season and scored 11 points in the district title game. As the team’s No. 3 hitter in baseball season, O’Neal was a first team all-conference and all-district player after leading the Thunderbirds with a .455 batting average, .609 on base percentage, .742 slugging percentage, 1.351 OPS, 31 RBI, 30 hits, 30 runs, 23 stolen bases and nine doubles.

Bedsworth finished her senior softball season with a .254 batting average while making 17 appearances pitching in the circle. She was one of the team’s top rebounders during basketball season, averaging four rebounds per game, and competed in the throwing events during track and field season, finishing third in the shot put at the conference meet.