On Sunday, April 25, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference(CIAC) honored two scholar-athletes from each high school in Connecticut whose academic & athletic careers have been exemplary and who possess high levels of integrity, self-discipline and courage.

The six students receiving the award from our Bristol high schools are:

From Bristol Central High School- Emma Quintero and Christopher Osuch

From Bristol Eastern High School- Audrey Perry and Jack Stavens

From Saint Paul Catholic High School- Sophia Gerst and Jonathan Passander

Each of these students has an outstanding high school academic record along with participation in an impressive number of high school sports.

Emma Quintero has a class rank of 6 out of 277 seniors and has a GPA 4.666. She will be attending the University of Connecticut (Storrs) in the fall as an undecided business major. At Bristol Central, Emma participated in girls soccer and girls lacrosse for four years. For lacrosse, she was a three year varsity starter as well as a captain for the 2021 season. She also was the manager of the wrestling team for four years. Emma received All-Academic Team achievements for all three sports.

Christopher Osuch is ranked first in his class with a GPA of 4.835. Chris is undecided as to which college he will be attending, but UConn is the school he is leaning towards. During his years at Central, Chris participated in soccer, wrestling, and baseball for each of all four years of high school.

Audrey Perry is ranked 17 at Bristol Eastern, and her weighted GPA is a 4.17. She is going to attend Fairfield University and as of now is planning on majoring in environmental studies with a pre-law program. At Eastern, Audrey ran cross country, indoor track and outdoor track.

Jack Stavens is currently ranked 6th in his class with a 4.45 GPA. Jack will be attending UCONN and majoring in business. In his four years at Bristol Eastern, he participated in soccer, cross country, basketball and lacrosse. 

Sophia Gerst is ranked 2nd in her class at Saint Paul with an academic average of 96.98 and a weighted average of 100.27. Sophia will be attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where she is committed to play college soccer. I will be majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a Pre-med track. At Saint Paul, she played four years of varsity soccer, 3 years of varsity basketball, and for two years was a Varsity member of the Track and Field team.

During the past year and a half, these student-athletes not only kept an amazing schedule with outstanding results, but they also had to cope with the disruptions caused by the Pandemic. Their responses to the chaos reveals a lot about their character and why they were chosen for such a prestigious award.

Sophia Gerst had this to say: “One of the biggest changes for me and many others was to learn to not take anything for granted and enjoy school and sports despite of the new guidelines. We athletes were grateful for any second we had on the field together. Athletes had to find it in themselves to work out independently and prepare for the possibility of having a season while still dealing with the fear of losing yet another season. Every player was extra careful to avoid quarantine. Even though playing with masks was not fun and limiting, the ability to play during such a tumultuous time in the world was enough to overshadow the increased difficulty to breathe or the extra effort to perform at your best. Overall, Covid-19 has changed so much of our lives while teaching us to be flexible, adaptable and always hopeful. … I’m grateful for all the hard work St.  Paul has put into ensuring that my classmates and I have had the opportunity to be in school in person and play sports with our friends. Being next to my friends and teammates every day has kept me motivated and brought me joy during the difficulties of Covid.”

Emma Quintero said, “The effects of Covid on school and sports were definitely an adjustment. I know we were all excited for our senior year and that hasn’t exactly gone as planned. I am just grateful we were able to have a soccer and lacrosse season, as unfortunately, wrestling was not able to happen. But even with that, my lacrosse team has been put into a two week quarantine in the middle of our season. Learning virtually has not been ideal but my teachers have been very understanding this year and been more than willing to provide extra help. This year has been hard for many but I have learned how much I actually enjoy being in school. The end of the school year seems to be looking up with graduation and other activities and I am beyond excited for my next chapter.”

Christopher Osuch said, ” Covid made my last year of school very difficult. Learning from home with no teachers or peers around me is one step away from teaching myself, and it has taken a lot of determination to remain focused. This being said, my education was not the most challenging aspect of school during Covid. Sports play a very important role in my life, so for my soccer team to sacrifice two weeks of play to quarantine as well as miss the CIAC tournament, for my competitive wrestling season to be reduced to practices with masks, and to play every day of baseball (and all other sports) knowing that one phone call can ruin the entire season, it has been very stressful and heartbreaking to have to struggle through what should have been my most accomplished year of sports. However, with the help of my teachers, coaches, and friends, I’ve managed to keep myself motivated to finish the year strong despite everything that tries to bring us down. I can easily see myself losing inspiration had it not been for my teachers’ and coaches’ constant dedication and encouragement throughout the school year, and I am very grateful for their continuous efforts to make sure we enjoy our last year of high school.”

Jack Stavens reply was right to the point. “Covid has caused me to have to quarantine multiple times and caused a large majority of my schooling to be online, but I still feel that I have been able to learn and have a good senior experience.”

And Audrey Perry had this to say: “Covid has definitely affected me at school in many ways. It was much harder for me to learn online this past year. I found it more difficult to focus on learning, however once I was able to resume learning at school four days a week, I grew much closer to my friends and classmates than before the pandemic. I think that Covid has made me appreciate school much more than I had at the beginning of high school, because once the normalcy of school was taken away I realized how important it was to be able to connect with my teachers and peers in person.”

All of these student-athletes deserve tremendous credit for their accomplishments, but especially for their attitudes. They are role models for other students, but really for all of us. They continued to strive for excellence in a time of many challenges. They are standing at the end of their high school careers with their heads held high, as well they should.