RUSSIA – The First Annual Prosperity Promotions Tiger Classic under the direction of the Versailles Athletic Department awarded its first annual scholarship following the January 15th tournament held at Versailles High School.
Russia senior, 6’1” Roni Poling was presented the scholarship before the Lady Raiders Wednesday afternoon practice with teammates and coaches on hand. Kim and Connor Custenborder of Prosperity Promotions made the presentation to Poling.
“I am very grateful for them,” Poling said. “This will make it much less of a financial burden for me and I am very excited to receive the scholarship.”
Poling will be attending Bowling Green State University.
Twelve schools competed in the one-day event – Indian Lake, Mississinawa Valley, Liberty Benton, Russia, Willard, Tri-Village, Wilmington, New Bremen, Waynesville, Marion Local, Bellefontaine, and Versailles.
“We wanted to find a player who was a hard worker, that was getting the 50-50 ball, that was diving on the floor, that was rebounding, the girl that was a good teammate, was helping her teammates up off the floor, things like that that normally don’t get noticed in the newspaper or on the news or any kind of awards,” Kim Custenborder stated. “That’s the kind of player we were looking for, for this award and it came down to Roni was the person we wanted to give this scholarship to.”
Russia Lady Raiders coach, Michael Bayshore had high praise for his senior leader receiving the first annual scholarship.
“Roni is a fantastic kid,” said Bashore. “From day one this summer she has shown her leadership as a senior, keeping everybody in line, making the other kids work hard, and when one of your better players is one of your hardest workers that goes a long way throughout your program – and she’s that kid,”
“She does a nice job of setting an example for everybody else – the type of thing they wanted in this scholarship they couldn’t have picked a better kid,” Coach Bashore added.
With the first annual event in the books, plans are underway for a Second Annual Prosperity Promotions Tiger Classic to be held at Versailles High School in 2025.
“We want to thank Scott Broerman and his staff for first thinking of us to sponsor this tournament,” said Kim Custenborder. “Also for putting on such a great tournament, we’ve only heard positive things and we look forward to what might happen next year.”
Prosperity Promotions is a Custenborder family-owned business that runs the Ohio Division of Prosperity. Kim Custenborder and her son, Connor Custenborder are National Account Sales and Marketing. Kim’s brother John is also a part owner in the corporate office located in Louisville, KY.
“Scott Boerman asked us if we would be interested in sponsoring the Lady Tiger Classic and immediately said yes because it fits right up our family alley,” Kim said. “We’re all about basketball and all about sports, all about making people better so we wanted to be able to do the tournament, have a bunch of girls, give the girls an opportunity in our area to showcase and show everybody what girls basketball is all about.”
