Asheville – Murphy alumni Cailey Dockery and Torin Rogers both took home awards at the 60th annual WNC Awards Banquet on May 22 at the Omni Grove Park.
The event, which is hosted by the Mountain Amateur Athletic Club, honors the best high school athletes and teams from across the region. Dockery picked up the Wells Fargo Advisors/Aiken, Meyer, Wheatley Division II Female Athlete of the Year award for a Major Sport, while Rogers was named the Apollo Flame Division II Female Athlete of the Year Award.
Dockery was homeschooled until her junior year, when she enrolled at Murphy. She was the Lady Bulldogs’ defensive backbone at libero, recording a team-high 443 digs. She also had 24 service aces and 23 kills. She will play volleyball at the University of Notre Dame this fall.
Rogers was named Big Smoky Mountain Conference Player of the Year in both volleyball and basketball. On the volleyball court, she had a team-high 412 kills and 86 total blocks as a middle hitter. She also had 195 digs and 27 aces.
With Rogers leading an excellent hitting attack and Dockery fortifying the back row, Murphy finished 23-3 overall, won the Big Smoky Mountain Conference Regular season title and advanced to the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A Western Regional final for the first time since 2011. The Lady Bulldogs’ volleyball team was one of five nominees for the Homewood Suites Division II Female Team award, but lost to Asheville Christian basketball.
On the basketball court, the 6’1 Rogers was a do-it-all player. She averaged 23.8 points per game, scoring 20 points or more in 20 games – including seven games where she scored 30 points or more. She was in double figures each game she played for the Lady Bulldogs.
With Rogers leading the way, Murphy finished 26-4 overall and won both the conference regular season and tournament titles before advancing to the Elite Eight of the state playoffs. On Thursday, the Asheville Citizen-Times named Rogers its girls basketball All-Western North Carolina Player of the Year for the second straight season. She will continue her basketball career at the University of Richmond this fall.