Seven Bull Dogs participate in signing day

Another signing day is in the books for Columbus North athletics after seven more athletes participated in a ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

Two of North’s girls basketball players, Liz Tynan and Kat Norman, will remain teammates at Hanover College. Tynan said joining a new campus at Hanover is less nerve-wracking knowing that she will have a friend she’s known since the fourth grade along with her.

“It’s exciting to be able to go to Hanover, especially with Kat,” Tynan said. “Just continuing my basketball career is a blessing to be able to do.”

Norman missed the majority of her final two years at North because of ACL injuries and said she is grateful to have the chance to extend her career for another four years. She also speaks highly of the education opportunities that she will have at Hanover.

“The bond with coaches that I made and the incoming freshman that are there, I really enjoyed meeting everyone,” Norman said. “I love the campus. It’s beautiful, and it has a really good business program, which is what I’m studying.”

Tynan expects to study exercise science, followed by physical therapy.

Boys basketball player Bailey Hester plans on studying something in the business area at Taylor, where he will be playing next season. The community-based atmosphere at Taylor and the fact that it is a private Christian school played a major role in Hester’s decision.

“I definitely would have regretted it if I didn’t,” Hester said on deciding to play in college,” I would have had that on my track for the rest of my life, and I’m glad I took this opportunity that was given to me.”

Faith also played a major role in track and cross-country runner Peyton Shelton’s decision to run at Southern Wesleyan in South Carolina. He grew up in a Wesleyan church and wanted to stay within his church denomination.

Shelton plans on majoring in exercise science when he gets there.

“Faith was very important to me in my college decision,” Shelton said. “I wanted to go somewhere where I could develop more as a human being than even as an athlete or a student.”

His track and cross-county teammate, Charlie Allen, decided to stay in Indiana and go to Marian University. He plans on majoring in either mathematics or business analytics.

The coaching staff at Marian caused Allen to gravitate toward choosing the Knights, and he said being able to sign with them in the beginning of the school year has taken stress off of him as the season has progressed.

“It takes the stress off of having to impress coaches or at during certain times being able to be eligible to be able to talk to those coaches,” Allen said.

Kennedy Cook represented the girls track team by signing to Ohio Northern. Cook fell in love with ONU’s political science program which she intends to major in next fall.

Cook also plans on attending law school, so she was looking for the “Three Plus Three” program that Ohio Northern has. The Three Plus Three program consists of three years of undergrad, then three years of law school.

Girls golf standout Danbi Kim also will be in Ohio next year playing at Findlay University. Kim was looking at a couple of other schools before Findlay contacted her.

Kim did a little research online and liked what she saw. She will study pharmacy.

“I liked the school setting,” Kim said. “It was small, and it was a nice, safe school for me, and it had a lot of the stuff that I like to study. That’s what kind of drew me.”