On May 14, Piedmont hosted the annual Highlander Awards in the Alan Harvey Theater, celebrating excelling athletes, teams, and coaches for their success in the 2025-2026 season.

Nominations and awards were voted on amongst the student body.

Brian Gardere won the Coach of the Year award for girls basketball. Their season ended with an overall record of 22-5.

“I feel honored to be considered and actually win the award. There are so many good coaches here at Piedmont,” Gardere said. “I want to congratulate everybody.”

WACC players of the year awards were awarded to sophomore Andrea Martin for girls basketball, sophomore Edie Elmquist for softball, freshman Talia Perl for softball, and senior Lucas Smolko for tennis.

Male Team of the Year was awarded to boys basketball as well as boys’ track and field. Female Team of the Year was awarded to girls basketball.

“I’m honestly just really proud of us as a team,” said girls basketball player sophomore Savannah Dennig. “I think this year, everyone has improved so much, and we’ve just done a great job.”

Martin was awarded with Female Athlete of the Year. Other nominees were seniors Dahlia Osman, Uzoma Iroh, and junior Claire Aubrecht. Senior Dillon Casey won Male Athlete of the year, while seniors Adrian Kondakov, PJ Brayer, Lucas Smolko, Luke McAuliffe, and juniors Beach Lorin, Sebastian Swain, and Rehan Mumtaz received nominations.

“I’m very grateful to have received this award. I’ve had a great past four years playing basketball at Piedmont, and I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons. I’m hoping to carry that to my future basketball career,” Casey said.

Freshmen Ben Sorensen and Sydney Latvala won male and female Newcomers of the Year.

Boys swimming won the Team Legacy award, and girls’ soccer won the Team GPA award.

Elmquist and freshman Makenna Small won the Iron Woman award. Seniors PJ Brayer and Luke McAuliffe won the Iron Man award.

Sophomore Nicole Li won the Service of the Year award, and junior Ken Tran won Fan of the Year.