Aberfeldie’s Mark Lynch joins some of the greats in the Essendon District Football League after winning his second Dick Reynolds Medal on Saturday night.
Lynch won the EDFL premier division best and fairest award with 17 votes, two clear of Pascoe Vale’s Ben Ross and Gorillas’ teammate Josh Cubillo on 15.
Lynch hit the front of the count in the second-last round with three votes, to sit two votes clear of Ross and three clear of Cubillo and Greenvale’s Addam Maric going into the final round.
With Ross having missed that round due to injury, Lynch was guaranteed to at least tie for the medal.
Cubillo polled one vote in the final round to join Ross on 15 votes, while Lynch and Maric failed to poll.
Lynch previously won the medal in 2012 while with Essendon Doutta Stars.
He almost had a Northern Football League Frank Rosbrook Trophy to his name from his time at Heidelberg.
After originally being named joint winner of the 2013 division 1 best and fairest trophy with Cameron Cloke, the league stripped Lynch of the medal five months later due to an “administrative error”.
Maric, in his first year back at his junior club after time in the AFL and VFL, finished third in the Reynolds Medal and was also named in the premier division team of the year.
Jets teammates Nick Lower (who finished fourth in the medal count), Daniel Campisano and Matthew Smith were also named in the team of the year.
In division 1, Doutta Stars’ captain, Shylo Smith, capped off a perfect season with the Bill Hutchison Medal.
Smith, who was best on ground in his side’s premiership win, was the runaway winner with 22 votes.
He was nine votes clear after 14 rounds and, despite not polling in the last four rounds, won by six votes.
Rhys Bloomfield finished second on 17 votes, while Craigieburn duo Brent Gordon and Cameron Cloke were third on 14.
Westmeadows’ Tamer Abdallah finished fourth on 13 votes.
Gordon and Cloke were two of the Eagles’ five players named in the division 1 team of the year.
Josh Young, Jason Cloke and David Courouzou were the others so named.
Westmeadows’ Daniel Willcocks, Bilal Allouch, Abdallah and Robbie Mullen, and Tullamarine’s Jack Burns and Justin Marcy also made division 1’s team of the year.
In other awards, Jacana’s Aaron Austin was named rising star of the competition; Roxburgh Park’s Robert Nedelkovski won the division 2 reserves best and fairest; Westmeadows’ Clayton Campbell was runner-up in the division 1 under-18.5 best and fairest award; and Greenvale’s Chris Kent was runner-up in the premier reserves’ best and fairest.
