In just his second year with CSU, striker Brendon Mandizvidza has been crowned Bathurst District Football men's first grade top goal scorer.
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Announced the winner of the accolade at the BDF's online award presentation on Facebook last Friday night, Mandizvidza finished the season with 18 goals in 12 games for the Stags' ladder leading Red team.
He also finished joint highest in the best and fairest count, but the accolade was awarded to Henry Shoemark, of CSU White, who finished on a better point per game ratio.
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"It was really great. That was my goal for the season and my team was also counting on me and they were there to support me as well," he said.
"I'm just grateful from the coach Smithy [Andrew Smith], who kept putting me up at striker and all my mates with the assists, especially Angus Hadwin. I think he helped me with almost half of my goals.
"My teammates were the reason I was able to score so many goals."
CSU Red finished the season undefeated from 13 games, however, the season was ultimately abandon due to the COVID-19 lockdown across regional NSW.
No finals were played but the Stags were ultimately awarded the minor premiership.
Mandizvidza said his team's goal was always to finish undefeated, so he's happy that the Stags were able to manage that.
"We were fighting to go through to the finals undefeated, so it felt great to reach our goal," he said.
"Our original goal was to win all games, but we drew one. I guess that was pretty good, compared to last year, were we just got into the semis.
"It was just unfortunate we couldn't finish the season but we won the minor premiership and that was great."
Mandizvidza found the back of the net 11 times last season in his first year with CSU.
He had played a season for Western NSW FC back in 2019, but made the switch to the club were he studies ahead of the 2020 season.
Originally from Zimbabwe, Mandizvidza moved to Australia in 2019 to study electrical engineering at CSU and he's hoping to remain at the club for the 2022 season if work placement doesn't affect his playing time.
If CSU can retain a majority of its squad, Mandizvidza is confident his team can go all the way and win in 2022.
"I'm pretty confident, as long as we don't lose our players that are finishing uni or moving away," he said.
"Even though, we'll still have freshers that will come in. You never know who might come.
"This year we ended up getting some new really good players, so I'm pretty confident next year will be great and hopefully we can finish the finals because that's where we want to be."
In the other lower men's grades, the highest goal scorer awards went to Panda's Thomas Newcombe (fifth grade), Churches United's Dean Arda (fourth grade), Eglinton's Rhet Humphreys (third grade) and Lithgow City Rangers' Keighran Brown (second grade).
The best and fairest awards in the men's lower grades went to Panda's Thomas Newcombe (fifth grade), Panorama's Adam Orme (fourth grade), Eglinton's Rhet Humphreys (third grade) and Lithgow City Rangers' Tayla Lloyd (second grade).
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