The pot of scholarship money available to the 20 finalists for The Times-Dispatch/Sports Backers Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards continues to grow.

This year, the total is up to $55,000. The winning boy and girl will receive $7,500 scholarships. The runners-up will get $5,000, and the remaining finalists will be awarded $2,000. A year ago, $40,000 was distributed among the finalists.

Ten boys and 10 girls were selected from a pool of 93 scholar-athletes, all seniors, who were nominated by their school or were Scholar-Athlete of the Month winners.

Each high school in the T-D's core circulation area was given the opportunity to nominate one senior girl and one senior boy for the award. Four seniors who were Scholar-Athletes of the Month were nominated as their school's Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

The finalists will be honored at a banquet June 2 at 7 p.m. at The Jefferson Hotel. Dave Robbins, the recently retired men's basketball coach at Virginia Union University, is the featured speaker.

For ticket information, call Faith Hecht at the Sports Backers, (804) 285-9495 or e-mail faith@sportstbackers.org.

The Sports Backers are presenting boys and girls Team of the Year awards, sponsored by Williams Mullen, for the first time. All state championship winners were considered for the award. Because of the timing of the banquet, spring sports teams could not be considered.

The boys selection is the St. Christopher's wrestling team, which won its seventh consecutive private school state title. Other state champions were Thomas Dale's undefeated volleyball team, Benedictine's VIS Division I basketball titlist and Collegiate's back-to-back winning swim team. The Highland Springs, John Marshall and Petersburg basketball teams also were in the running.

The girls winner is the Midlothian girls cross country team, which won the Virginia High School League title for the third consecutive year. Other contenders were the Deep Run volleyball team, which won a second consecutive Group AAA crown; the Collegiate soccer team, which recently won the VIS championship; and the two-time champion St. Catherine's swim team. The L.C. Bird basketball team also was considered.

CJW Sports Medicine will present its male and female Comeback Athletes of the Year at the banquet. Each winner receives a $1,000 scholarship, and the schools receive $500. The awards recognize high school athletes who have overcome major injuries or illnesses during their careers and returned to playing their sports. The male winner is multiple sports standout Kirk Rohle of Hanover. Cayla Toups of Lee-Davis and Taylor Thornton of Patrick Henry, both volleyball players, are co-winners on the girls side.

The school nominees for the Scholar-Athletes of the Year will be featured in a two-page presentation in The Times-Dispatch on June 1. The comeback athletes will be featured at a later date.
Contact Arthur Utley at (804) 649-6559 or autley@timesdispatch.com.