ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Lydia Worthing
Lydia Worthing goes for the tip against Tyrone earlier this year.
Sophomore Lydia Worthing plays basketball and runs track for Bellwood.
Not only did Lydia helped propel the basketball team to a successful season in the winter, early on she appears to be a bright spot on the BA track team.
Lydia has been named the BluePrint Athlete of the Week.
Lydia missed out on her freshman track season after the COVID-19 shutdown. She didn’t get to finish the basketball season and she didn’t even get to start her track season, and it stung.
“I felt robbed. I was really looking forward to my first year of track and when I heard we weren’t having a season it just added to the disappointment of playoffs and states being canceled for basketball,” Worthing explained.
Lydia is now very determined to have a strong track season. During the summer, Worthing spent some weekends at coach Jimmy Gerwert’s pit working on her pole vault technique.
It seems like Lydia’s hard work is paying off. She is currently one of the top pole vaulters on the team. Worthing will be competing in a few other events as well, but they have yet to be decided.
Lydia hopes the track team can put together a solid season.
“I want us to develop into a good supportive team and work to challenge each other at our own individual events,” stated Worthing. “My main goal for myself this year is just to find what events I’m good at and which events I’m not.”
The other sport Lydia plays is basketball. This year Lydia helped lead the Lady Devils to a 10-5 record. The girls finished 9-0 in conference play and won the ICC North.
Worthing averaged a double double this past season. Lydia averaged 10.9 points per game and 10.7 rebounds.
The Lady Devils had a very young team and will be returning their entire starting five next year. The future looks bright for the girls basketball team.
“I think we will really improve from this year and be ready to take on any challenge,” said Worthing. “This year was tough on us both with COVID and losing all of our starters from last year, so I think next season we should be able to get far.”
Good luck to Lydia and the rest of the spring sport athletes this season.
