Bulldogs win four GLVC awards in four weeks
The Bulldogs earned four GLVC Athlete of the Week awards between Sept. 21 and Oct. 14. This already ties the number of GLVC athlete awards given to Truman State University athletes during the 2025-2026 school year.
Junior midfielder Mackenzie Wright won the Offensive Player of the Week honors for women’s soccer, sophomore running back Madden Irving won Offensive Player of the Week for football, senior Tori Creason won Setter of the Week for volleyball and junior Clare Stahr won Runner of the Week for women’s cross country.
Wright earned recognition for her two goals scored between conference games against the University of Illinois Springfield and Lincoln University. Wright said that her biggest strength on the pitch comes from contesting balls in the air.
“I think I’m pretty good in the air,” Wright said. “I really like to win balls that are punted or just through balls to my teammates. I feel like being able to get up in the air and be able to get a head on it really makes a difference.”
The women’s soccer team is currently making a push for the GLVC conference tournament, where the Bulldogs will need to be within the top eight teams to do so.
Irving received his player of the week award in the Bulldogs’ historic 29-27 win against the University of Indianapolis Sept. 26. Irving racked up 158 rushing yards with 2 touchdowns, as well as catching a 75-yard touchdown pass, bringing him to 233 all- purpose yards in the game. Irving said the receiving touchdown stood out the most to him during that game.
“A lot of good happened in that game, but I would definitely say the 75-yard screen pass touchdown,” Irving said. “I thought it was going to be a good play, but I didn’t think it was going to be a touchdown. Coach [Kellen Nesbitt] came out with a good game plan. We talked about it at halftime, maybe running it. We executed well with blocking downfield. Everybody was happy,
celebrated and it was a great play overall.”
Irving won another Offensive Player of the Week award this last Monday following his performance in the Bulldog’s win against Quincy University.
After a rocky start to the season, the Bulldogs are now 3-4 overall and 3-1 in conference play with 4 games left to play.
Creason’s matches against the University of Indianapolis and Lewis University earned her the Setter of the Week award. She recorded 98 assists and 21 digs between those two games, which put her over 2,000 career assists and moved her into the Truman top-10 all time.
Creason said one of the things that sets her playing style apart is her collaboration with the other setter to mess with the other team.
“I would say me and Skylar [Holler], who’s our other setter, we work a lot on being able to look the same no matter where we’re setting,” Creason said. “Which makes it harder for other teams to read us when we’re setting … that’s something we work on a lot in practice. Our warm up is literally trying to trick our own team. When we do it in games, it’s just so rewarding.”
Creason is the first Bulldog volleyball player to win this award since the University’s entrance into the GLVC in 2013. The volleyball team is also competing for a top-eight
conference tournament spot.
Stahr was recognized as the GLVC Women’s Runner of the Week after her individual win at the Brian T. Simpson Invitational in Columbia, MO, Oct. 10. Finishing the 5K race in 18 minutes and 17 seconds, a cross country personal record, Stahr edged out the win over University of Central Missouri’s Jordyn Brown.
“I think the pivotal part of my race was around 2-3K when the UCM girls started to put a little distance on me and my teammates, and in that moment I decided to surge to stick with
them,” Stahr said. “If not for that, Jordyn [Brown] wouldn’t have been close enough to hang on to her, so that and my finish were probably the biggest moments [of the race].”
Aided by Stahr’s win, the Bulldog women’s cross country team secured the overall team win, their second of the year. Stahr said the team goal is to podium at the GLVC conference meet in November.
