Gazette’s Athlete of the Year candidates always are remarkably stellar

Two of the girls and two of the boys I voted for in our Athletes of the Year balloting didn’t make our five finalists for both.

When I’m not in sync with voters in political elections, I feel it’s because Mike knows best and the public needs to wise up. When it happens in our high school athletics honor poll, though, it’s because my choices were great but so were the others.

When Gazette sports writer Jeff Linder assembles the list of AOY nominees and forwards them to the rest of us on the staff with details on their achievements, trying to then pick the top five girls and top five boys is daunting. It’s like comparing the very best apples to the very best oranges.

There seldom seems to be an obvious choice. But there never feels like one that is wrong, either.

In Sunday’s sports section you can read our terrific features on the terrific winners, Peyton Robinson of Lisbon and Ben Kueter of Iowa City High. If the past college achievements of AOY winners are any indication, Robinson will do great things in volleyball at Wartburg and Kueter will give Iowa’s football team a lift.

AOY winners don’t stop in high school. Three of them wound up in the NFL, and two have played in the WNBA. Major League Baseball and the NBA each were visited by one apiece.

The 10 finalists had write-ups in last Sunday’s Gazette that listed their athletic feats. To show how accomplished you had to be to get to that level, here are some notes on the four people I voted for who weren’t finalists:

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Abby Davis, Vinton-Shellsburg: She was a second-team all-state soccer player who scored a school-record 54 goals.

She was a first-team all-conference volleyball player who set the school record for digs in a season

She was a three-time first-team all-conference basketball player who led the Vikettes to the Class 3A state tournament for the first time in 24 years. They then had a quarterfinal upset of No. 1-seed Estherville-Lincoln Central, which entered the game with a 38-game winning streak.

She also earned three varsity letters in softball. The first was as an eighth-grader.

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Finley Hall, West Liberty: She made an all-state basketball team in each of her three last seasons and was a four-year starter who scored 1,218 points.

She was a second-team all-state softball player as a sophomore and junior, and helped the Comets to the 2021 state tournament. She again was first-team all-conference as a senior.

She also was an all-conference soccer player her senior season.

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Luke Czarnecki, Lisbon: He was a six-time state placewinner in track and field who was on three state relay champions, the shuttle hurdle relay as a sophomore and senior and the 4x100 (senior). He also was fourth in the high jump and fifth in the long jump this year after winning conference titles in both.

This season will be his fourth as a baseball letterwinner. He had a 10-2 career pitching record heading into this season.

As a senior, he was a second-team all-conference basketball player and second-team all-district in football.

He is headed to Wichita State to compete for its men’s track and field team.

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Tate Haughenbury, North Linn: He was a first-team all-district quarterback in football with career totals of 3,762 passing yards and 43 touchdown passes on the two best teams in school history (2021, 2022).

He was a three-time all-conference basketball player, and was first-team all-state as a senior. He had 1,351 points for teams that went 106-4 with a state championship over his four seasons.

He qualified for three state track relays as a junior.

All this is glorification for athletics, not academics or citizenship. But you can take it to the bank that each of these four and all the other nominees have self-discipline, motivation and fortitude. They’ll go to places bigger than a field of play.

May you all one day know the feeling of participating in an election with every choice a good one.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com