Mahoney, Spinazzola, Field Honored at Awards

Narragansett High School coach Kathryn Mahoney, Narragansett swimmer Bianca Spinazzola and South Kingstown baseball player T.J. Field were local winners at the sixth annual Cox Rhode Island Sports Awards.

Cox Sports and the RI National Guard honored the state’s best scholar-athletes from Woonsocket to Westerly and the top college athlete. Local basketball legend Chris Herren was the key notespeaker.

Local 2012 Cox RI Sports Awards Individual Winners

Girls Swimming: Bianca Spinazzola, Narragansett

Baseball: TJ Lynch, South Kingstown

The University of Florida’s Elizabeth Beisel, the 2012 SEC Female Swimmer of the Year and Olympic hopeful who hails from North Kingstown, received the 2012 Collegiate Athlete of the Year Award.

The 2012 Coach of the Year went to Narragansett High’s Kathryn Mahoney.  She directed the Lady Mariners soccer team to a second straight Division III title, and the girls’ basketball team to a Division II title.

The Ben Mondor Award was presented in honor of Jason Pisano (posthumous). The award was established in 2011 in honor of legendary Pawtucket Red Sox owner Ben Mondor, who died in Oct. 2012 at the age of 85. The Ben Mondor Award will be presented annually to an individual who has made extraordinary contributions in a positive way in the realm of sports in Rhode Island.

Pisano, a wheelchair marathoner who was a local legend throughout the running community in Rhode Island, completed 52 marathons – his final race this past April at Boston Marathon. He died less than three weeks later.

For additional information regarding the Cox RI Sports Awards their website here.

Release and photo courtesy of Cox Sports.