As a sports journalist, I seek to write about the true stories behind sports. While writing my “Who will be Holy Family Athletes of the Year?” article, I knew I was setting myself up to be criticized; it was my first article where I put a lot of my opinion into the piece. So with that comes the responsibility of owning up to being wrong. Now, I did not have all the names of the nominees when writing my article, and if I did, maybe I would have thought differently and included more, but we will never know. When Sawyer Schugel’s name was announced as the recipient of the Holy Family Male Athlete of the Year award, I immediately knew I had to give him his due praise. After all, I did give praise to two non-winners.

Sawyer Schugel had a very impressive High School athletic career. As a 7 time letter recipient, Schugel played 4 years of Varsity Soccer and 3 years of Varsity Hockey.

For soccer, Sawyer was awarded with All-Conference, All-State Honorable Mention, and team MVP his junior year. As for his senior year, his impressive play led to leading the Holy Family Boys Soccer team to their first State Tournament in Holy Family school history. Sawyer was named captain for the season, All-Conference, and All-State First Team. To go on top of all that, he was named team MVP for his second consecutive year.

As for Hockey, Sawyer was a key player in his 3 teams that reached the section finals. Each time, however, Holy Family came up just short. Sawyer first saw varsity ice time as a sophomore, scored 16 points as a junior, and finished his senior year season with 28 points.

Another huge accomplishment for Sawyer was when he, as a Junior, founded the Holy Family Fishing team and led 3 teams to the State Tournament in their inaugural season.

Sawyer is a very deserving recipient for the Holy Family Male Athlete of the Year; so, congratulations to both Sawyer and the Female Athlete of the Year, Leigh Steiner.

Til next year…

Which current juniors will take home the award next year?