Sports

Montauk Man Needs Your Help To Play in Division III All-Star Game

Fans can vote Hayden Ward, a forward at SUNY Oswego, until Wednesday at noon.

The Reese's Division III College All-Star Game tips off March 23, right before the NCAA Division III men’s basketball championship semi-finals at Salem Civic Center in Virginia, and one of Montauk's very own — Hayden Ward — hopes to be on the court.

Ward, a forward for the State University of New York at Oswego Lakers, is one of the top senior student-players for whom fans can vote in a competition that opened on Monday. Fans can vote until Wednesday at noon.

Voting takes place on the homepage of D3hoops.com. Ward is one of the students eligible from each of the eight Division III regions whose teams are no longer participating in the NCAA Tournament.

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The two top vote-getters will join 16 other seniors, two from each region, who were already selected for the game.

East Hampton Patch readers can help Ward get on the All-Star game roster. Each fan may cast one vote per device.

Find out what's happening in East Hamptonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Ward already has a lot to celebrate; He was named SUNYAC Player of the Year.

As a senior, Ward registered career highs in points and rebounds with a 33-point, 18-boards. At 6-feet 6-inches, 215 pounds, he has excelled during all four years at Oswego. He was named to the First Team All-SUNYAC during the 2011-12 season, after leading team in rebounds and finishing second in scoring. As a freshman in 2009, he was named the Max Ziel Tournament MVP.

He is majoring in business administration.

While playing at East Hampton High School, he was one of the few boys basketball players to break 1,000 points, a barrier that was also broken on the girls side this year by Kaelyn Ward (no relation).

On Tuesday morning, Ward had 765 votes on D3Hoops.com, or 3 percent of the voting. In the lead was Tahrike Carter, a Rhode Island College player, with 4,726 votes and Andrew Galow, of Rhodes, with 5,385.

According to the website, more than 37,000 ballots were cast in last year's competition.

Will you vote for Hayden Ward to go to the All-Star game? Have you watched Ward's basketball career unfold? Tell us in the comments below.


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