APOLLO BEACH – Jesuit senior Michael Conlon had completely forgotten about the Alvarez awards for Hillsborough County’s top high school soccer players, so it took him a few minutes after entering the Alvarez Company CPA office Thursday night to figure out why he was there.
Conlon earned the Jose A. Alvarez Award for the top boys player, and Steinbrenner’s Dani Eule took home the Janet Alvarez Award for the top girl in the county.
“I was so shocked,” Conlon said. “I’m still blown away by it.”
Conlon became the third Tiger to win the award in the last four years, after Tyler Hartlage (2011) and Brett Durrance (2012). The center back scored seven goals and had three assists in 20 games but made his mark on defense, where Jesuit coach Eric Sims calls him one of the best he’s ever coached.
The team captain also scored the first goal in the district championship game and took the Tigers to the Class 3A region final. He will continue playing club soccer at Ole Miss, where he plans to study business.
Hillsborough’s Daniel Lorenzo was the runnerup for the award, which is decided by county coaches.
Eule became Steinbrenner’s second female recipient of the honor, edging runnerup Alex Schweitzer of Carrollwood Day.
The center midfielder and two-year captain was one of the county’s most technical players and was the Warriors’ top playmaker. Some of her biggest contributions came with leadership on a young team in a rebuilding year.
“I enjoyed being that type of person on the field,” Eule said.
Eule has signed with East Carolina, where she intends to study psychology with hopes of becoming a psychologist.