BILLINGS — For the second straight year, standouts from Billings Skyview and Billings West are Midland Roundtable Athletes of the Year as Billings' top high school athletes. Rae Smart and Zach Morse received their awards during Monday night's banquet inside the Billings Hotel and Convention Center.
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Smart earned the 2025 female honor after a successful three-sport career at Skyview. She helped the Falcons to a perfect 24-0 Class AA state basketball championship during the 2023-24 season, then shortly after claimed Class AA's state shot put title.
Smart recently broke the Roundtable's Top 10 track and field meet shot put record by almost two feet and will attend Montana State Billings as a dual-sport athlete in basketball and track. She also earned four varsity soccer letters.
Morse, named the 2025 male winner, capped a terrific high school wrestling career in February by becoming Montana's 42nd individual four-time state champion. His career closed with a 146-10 overall record and three straight Class AA team titles with the Bears.
Morse was a fifth-place All-American earlier this year at the NHSCA High School Nationals and finished fourth at the USA Wrestling High School Showcase. He will continue his wrestling career at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D.
Last May Skyview’s Breanna Williams and West’s Keyan Hernandez were named Athletes of the Year.
Billings Senior's Sy Pizzolato earned the Maier Award in honor of former Roundtable member Kathy Maier who lost her battle with health issues, and daughter Nicki Maier-Bryce who also passed away. The $500 scholarship is presented to a graduating senior deemed "most courageous athlete" by the Roundtable committee.
Pizzolato has overcome severe hearing loss in both ears to earn three state swimming championships, and three medals, including gold in the 400 free mixed relay, at the World Deaf Swimming Championships in Argentina. Most recently, he qualified for this November Deaflympics in Tokyo and will swim for Augustana University in Sioux Falls.
Midland Roundtable Athlete of the Year
2025 Female finalists: Grace Curnow (West), Dani Jordan (Lockwood), Leela Ormsby (Senior), Rae Smart (Skyview), Becca Washington (Senior).
2025 Male finalists: Malachi Claunch (West), Jack DeBourg (Cenetral), Ryan Dierenfield (Skyview), Zach Morse (West), Ryder Murdock (Senior).
Past finalists and winners of the award — first given in 1989 — can be seen here.
