Liess, Noyes top All-Area football, volleyball picks

Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette McCook High School junior Brendan Liess was named as the McCook Daily Gazette's Football Player of the Year.

Gross, Troester,

Wilson earn

coaching honors

Brendan Liess and Savannah Noyes were the most dominant high school football and volleyball players in the McCook Daily Gazette area.

Liess, the McCook High School tailback, and Noyes, the Southwest High middle hitter, were selected as the Gazette's All-Area Players of the Year for football and volleyball for the 2004 season.

Jeff Gross, Liess' coach at McCook, was named Football Coach of the Year for the third straight season.

Southwest's Dennis Troester and Dundy County's Bill Wilson, who both took their teams to the Nebraska State Volleyball Tournament, were selected as Co-Coaches of the Year.

Liess, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound junior, rushed for 1,1862 yards and scored 28 touchdowns for the Bison.

He helped McCook reach the Nebraska Class B state title for the third straight season. The Bison, state champions in 2002 and 2003, lost to Lincoln Pius X 14-9 in the 2004 title game.

McCook's 38-game winning streak was snapped.

In two seasons, plus four carries his freshman year, Liess has 3,553 yards and 49 TDs as a Bison.

Liess was joined on the All-Area Football First Team by a dozen teammates, including linemen Karl Shaddock, Jayce Dueland, Jeff Lyster, Tony Aguilar and Ryan Saalfeld.

Also named were Alex Beam (who rushed for 1,139 yards), Tony Purvis, Jeremy Young, Rico Quezada, Drew Wilson, Brian Winder and Josh Cherry.

Chase County-Imperial was represented by Taylor May and Aaron Fuehrer.

Cambridge placed four players -- Waid Vontz, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Lytle and Taylor Keyser.

Arapahoe feeatures two All-Area picks -- Michael Cacy and Tony Braithwait.

Southwest has three representatives -- Tyler Kennedy, Mark Haag and Jesse Randolph.

Hayes Center's two picks were Brett Brown and Nathan Brott.

Five schools had one player each -- Grant kicker Jeff Nodlinski, Rawlins County's Rodney Rippe, Oberlin's Gannon Reichert, St. Francis' Derek Ross and Wauneta-Palisade's Cory Flaig.

Under Gross and his coaching staff, the McCook Bison have won 46 of their last 50 games.

All-Area

volleyball team

Noyes, a 6-3 middle hitter, helped lead the Southwest Roughriders to a 23-6 record.

She had 438 kills this season, including 66 during Southwest's two games at the Nebraska Class C-2 state tournament.

Noyes signed to play volleyball at the University of Kansas.

She was joined on the Gazette All-Area First Team by teammate Brittany McConville.

McCook placed two players on the First Team. Senior Courtney Moore is a repeat First Team selection and junior Allison Smith, who played last season at Culbertson.

Also placing two players each on the team are Dundy County (Annette Case and Brooke Olson), Cambridge (Andrea Langley and Lisa Minnick) and Chase County-Imperial (Whitney Paisley and Annete Poppe).

Also making the team were Southern Valley's Janae Perkins, Hayes Center's Mary Gohl, Oberlin's Tricia Dorshorst and Rawlins County-Atwood's Ariel Dunker.