Columbus North’s Hank Lin, left, and Columbus East’s Monica McMahon are The Republic 2025 Male and Female Athletes of the Year.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Hank Lin was an experienced tennis player, but wasn’t happy with how he trained following his sophomore season, so he went to Taiwan for some intense training last summer.
Monica McMahon was relatively new to the sport of wrestling, and she had a year build-up to prepare for girls wrestling becoming a full-fledged IHSAA sport.
Both Lin and McMahon enjoyed the fruits of their labor with big senior seasons. Both won state championships and are the 2025 Republic Male and Female Athletes of the Year.
Not only did McMahon go undefeated and capture the 190-pound state title in January, she led Columbus East to the first IHSAA girls wrestling state team championship.
“I feel like I’m incredibly blessed, incredibly lucky and I’m just thankful that I really listened and bought into the Columbus East wrestling program and trusted the people that surrounded me,” McMahon said. “The timing of it becoming an official sport, I was really lucky because I had the whole (junior) year to just study it where it wasn’t a complete varsity sport, it wasn’t in the spotlight. So I had a whole year to just study up on wrestling, and then my senior year, I got to just go out and shine, which was really perfect for me.”
After falling in the state singles championship match as a Columbus North junior, Lin won the title last October.
“I knew that people considered me to be the favorite for the season, but I really didn’t think that much about it, and I knew that going to the state tournament with all of top contenders, I knew that I had some sort of an advantage, considering that I’ve already been in the state finals match,” Lin said. “So I just played freely and came out on top.”
Lin spent most of the summer in his parents’ native Taiwan, training five days a week at an academy.
“I feel like the end of sophomore, beginning of junior year, I kind of slacked off and wasn’t really conditioning consistently, and I wasn’t really putting as much effort as I did the summer of my senior year,” Lin said. “The loss from my junior season was pretty disappointing, so I knew that I had to train way harder. I had to put in more effort. I had to put in 110 percent of my time and dedication, so that’s why I went back to Taiwan to train with all the top players there.”
This spring, Lin was a key player on North’s boys volleyball team, which, like girls wrestling, had been a club sport before becoming a full varsity sport this year.
A three-time Republic Boys Tennis Player of the Year, Lin followed in the footsteps of his brothers Kevin and Nathan, both of which were two-time Republic Boys Tennis Players of the Year. Hank plans to major in pharmaceutical sciences at Purdue and join Nathan on its club tennis team.
“I’m really thankful for the support that came from my friends and family,” Hank said. “I’m actually looking forward to playing alongside my brother, who’s playing club tennis. Ever since he accepted his offer to go to Purdue and play club tennis, that’s all I ever dreamed of, just playing with them and trying to get to nationals.”
Meanwhile, McMahon is headed to Indiana University to major in recreational therapy and join its club women’s wrestling team. She originally committed to compete at Indiana Tech, but switched to the Hoosiers last month.
“IU has a better financial plan for me, so going there is going to cost me absolutely nothing,” McMahon said. “I’m interested in helping build a club. Indiana Tech already has a varsity lineup and a JV lineup and two or three teams of people, a lot of extra girls, but IU, I think I’ll have more of a chance to help found the team, which I think my skills of founding a team will be helpful at IU and I like the people there, too.”
Just like it did at East, women’s wrestling has a chance to become a varsity sport at IU during the time McMahon and her twin sister Grace will be there.
“I know it’s just going to be huge for women’s sports in general to have another opportunity to go out and show your personal strength in an unusual sport,” McMahon said. “It will mean more to women’s sports than it does just to me, but for me personally, I think it’s great that I get to have a sport where I’m connected with my both family and my past, as well as the growth of women’s sports.”
The Republic Athletes of the Year (open to Bartholomew County seniors):
Male
2016: Rhett Myers, Columbus East
2017: Mitchell Burton, Columbus North
2018: Brigham Kleinhenz, Columbus North
2019: Trenton Kelley, Columbus North
2020: Eric Stiles, Columbus East
2021: Blake Huffman, Columbus North
2022: Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff and Tucker Smith, Columbus North
2023: Cooper Horn, Columbus North
2024: Aidan Whitley, Columbus North
2025: Hank Lin, Columbus North
Female
2016: Katrina May, Columbus North
2017: Cortney VanLiew, Columbus East
2018: Adi Minor, Columbus East
2019: Megna Chari, Columbus East
2020: Olivia Morlok, Columbus North
2021: Mackenzie Barnett, Columbus North
2022: Emily Moore, Columbus North
2023: Maddi Rutan, Columbus North
2024: Kathryn Wilson, Columbus North
2025: Monica McMahon, Columbus East
