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Swain Maroon Devils football was welcome back at the first game of the season with Head Coach Neil Blankenship at the lead.
Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Track and Cross Country
Lady Devils track and cross country were on fire this year, winning the SMC cross country conference in January, SMC track championship back in June, and then were named 1A Cross Country State Champions in November!
Gracie Monteith was the individual conference champion in the spring. Freshman Arizona Blankenship stunned in the fall cross country season breaking the school record in her first high school meet, and was named SMC cross country Runner of the Year, Western Regional Champion, NCHSAA 1A State Champion, and 2nd Team All State.
Lily Bjerkness, Amaya Hicks, Arizona Blankenship, Gracie Monteith, and Emily Ulaner made All Smoky Mountain Conference for cross country.
Lady Devils Coach Jennifer Chatham was named SMC Coach of the Year for cross country. Ian Roper was honored by the NFHS Coaches Association as 2020-21 NC Girls Track and Field Coach of the Year.
Back in January, the Maroon Devils competed in the cross country state championships for a 6th place finish. For fall cross country, Connor Brown was named SMC Runner of the Year. Connor Lambert, Connor Brown, and Kane Jones made All Smoky Mountain Conference.
Soccer
Maroon Devils soccer won the Smoky Mountain Conference championships back in March and became SMC champs again in October. Junior Landon Matz was named soccer Player of the Year and was All Smoky Mountain conference for soccer, along with Gavin Lanning, Levi Trantham, and Lucas Trantham. Head coach Scott Cline was named SMC Coach of the Year and Region 11 Coach of the Year.
Football
Back at the beginning of the year beloved football coach, Neil Blankenship stepped down as Swain’s head football coach with Eric Stephenson as interim head coach during the spring season that happened because of pandemic delays from the previous year. In June, however, we got the good news that Blankenship was back in the reins as head coach just in time for summer workouts. Football returned to a relatively normal schedule in the fall for a good showing.
Maroon Devil football ranked 11th in the 1A west division for the fall season and had several All Smoky Mountain Conference players: Ben Payne, Donnavin Groenewold, Gavin Lanning, Cooper Hyatt, Nathan Bogdanowcz, and Carson Taylor.
Evy Liefbarth competes at Tokyo Olympic Games
Seventeen-year-old Evy Leibfarth of Bryson City made her Olympic debut on Team USA in the women’s kayaking in July. She was the youngest canoe slalom athlete that competed in Tokyo. She competed in the WC1 semifinals before a penalty kept her from advancing into the finals. It’s not every day, a local seventeen-year-old competes in the Olympics and everyone is extremely proud of Evy and can’t wait to see what the future holds for her!