STEVENS POINT — Albany’s Alana Durtschi is one of 32 athletes from St. Croix Falls to Racine have been selected as finalists to receive the prestigious 2024 Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association’s (WIAA) Statewide Scholar Athlete Award, presented by We Energies Foundation and Wisconsin Public Service Foundation. More than 1,213 Scholar Athlete finalists have been recognized since the program began in 1984.
To determine the top 32 finalists, four boys and four girls were selected (based on both athletic and academic achievement) from each of the four WIAA divisions.
“Each of these remarkable student athletes has excelled in academics and athletics,” said Tom Shafranski, Assistant Director of the WIAA. “Seventeen of this year’s 32 WIAA Scholar Athlete finalists have a grade point average of 4.0 to date. When you combine all 32 scholar athlete GPAs, the average is 3.9. This year’s honorees have already earned a total of 323 varsity letters during their first 3 1/2 years of high school. That’s an average of ten letters per athlete, and we have not yet completed our spring sports season.”
This year more than 836 seniors were nominated for the award by 422 high schools throughout the state.
The 2024 WIAA Scholar Athlete Finalists will be recognized at an awards ceremony Sunday, May 5 at SentryWorld in Stevens Point. Keynote speaker will be Joe Delagrave, a two-time Paralympic medalist and current head coach of the U.S. Wheelchair Rugby Team.
Of interest this year, St. Croix Falls High School produced two WIAA Scholar Athletes — Lucy Belisle and Eli Prokop. Additionally, Edgar High School has their twelfth WIAA Scholar Athlete, Teegan Streit, and Mauston High School honoree Brock Massey and Stevens Point Area Senior High honoree Aloysius Franzen are their schools tenth award recipients.
Durtschi is first in her class academically and has earned 11 varsity letters in three sports, including basketball, softball and volleyball. She helped her Comets basketball team win a state championship her senior year, and she received the all-conference honors as the league’s MVP the past two seasons. On the softball field, she helped the softball team finish state runner-up in 2021 and earned team MVP honors her sophomore and junior seasons in addition to receiving all-conference recognition as a junior.
Durtschi shares, “Juggling academic studies with a busy athletic schedule is tough, but it taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance. I’ve learned that sports can be a temporary thing, so I make sure to apply the same level of determination to academics. I’ve achieved high marks in difficult classes and multiple college courses that earned me the honor of valedictorian.”
Durtschi intends to study education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
A live stream of the awards program will be available statewide across ABC affiliates, including WKOW, WAOW, WXOW, WQOW, WVTV and CW14 at 1 p.m. on May 5.
