Houston Hawks football team a finalist for Alaska Sports Hall of Fame award

The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame announced the finalists for the 2020 Trajan Langdon Youth Award, and the finalists include the Houston High School football team.

After a year of fires and earthquakes, Houston rose above it all and won the ASAA Division III state championship. The Hawks completed a perfect 10-0 season for the first time in school history with a 41-8 victory over Barrow at Anchorage Football Stadium, avenging a semifinal loss to the Whalers the previous year. Houston finished the year averaging 42 points a game while only allowing 7.

Ninilchik’s Judah Eason, Anchorage’s Brandon Gall and the West High hockey team are also finalists.

Eason, a Native Youth Olympics champion from Ninilchik, has been a youth leader in Native sports since his first competition. He would rather be coaching than competing, but knows that through friendly competition he can be an example by demonstrating leadership, integrity and sportsmanship. He also learned to overcome adversity after suffering a broken leg from a bad landing in the one-foot high kick at the 2017 NYO.

Gall, a Service High all-conference basketball player also is a manager at McDonalds, while also being a certified basketball referee. In his off time, Brandon volunteers his time coaching boys and girls basketball at Hanshew middle school, and a local 6th grade team. He served as class president as a junior and student boy president as a senior. After high school, Brandon hopes to continue to play basketball while pursuing a degree in Business Management.

With more cheerleaders than skaters, the short-handed West Eagles carved up the competition by going 24-1-1 and beating defending champion South 4-3 in double-overtime to win the state championship. Dressing just 13 skaters and two goalies, West trailed twice by two goals and tied the game with less than two minutes left in regulation before Matthew Patchin scored the game-winner.

The Trajan Langdon Youth Award recognizes leadership, sportsmanship and inspiration, and is given to a youth or group of youths who best demonstrated integrity during the past year and positively influenced and inspired others to be better sportsmen or sportswomen.

Past winners included Soldotna’s Brenner Furlong in 2018 and the South Anchorage High boys basketball team in 2019.

Aedyn Concepcion and Finnigan Donley, both of Anchorage, and Hayden Lieb, of Bethel, are the boys’ finalists for the Pride of Alaska Youth Award.

A four-peat

Concepcion, a South wrestler captured his fourth straight individual championship to join an elite group of 14 Alaskan boys who have achieved a four-peat. He became the first from South High to do so with a 7-1 decision over a Wasilla wrestler in the 119-pound division. The senior also won his fourth straight Cook Inlet Conference title and only lost two matches in his four-year career.

Donley, a teenage alpine skier was the undisputed champion of the 2019 U14 Western Regionals, claiming gold medals in the slalom, giant slalom and super-G. A 14-year-old at West Anchorage High School, he became the first Alaskan in 13 years to qualify for the 2020 Alpe Cimbra Children’s Cup in Italy, one of the world’s most prestigious alpine ski series for young racers.

Lieb became the 14th Alaska high school wrestler to win four state titles as an individual. He added three more team championships for Bethel. The high school All-American finished his career with a 139-12 record and signed with NCAA D1 University of Wyoming. In his final match at the 2019 state championships, Lieb defeated a Petersburg wrestler 15-0 at 160 pounds to help Bethel take a narrow victory over Glennallen.

Colony High junior Patrick McMahon, a prep basketball standout, was an honorable mention.

The Pride of Alaska Youth Award honors consistent excellence in athletic competition. It rewards an athlete or team that not only excelled in sports but did so with integrity and sportsmanship. Recipients must be in high school or younger at time of selection.

Seward swimmer Lydia Jacoby, Fairbanks runner and skier Kendell Kramer and Delta Junction sprinter Hailey Williams have been named the girls’ finalists for the Pride of Alaska Youth Award.

Ruling the pool

Jacoby, just a 16-year-old sophomore at Seward High, Jacoby is already a two-time state record holder in the 100-yard breaststroke. This season she posted a blazing time of 1:00.61 to break her own state record. With a time of 1:10.45, she qualified by a half-second to compete in the 100 breast stroke at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, which were canceled due to COVID-19

As a runner, Kramer, a West Valley High star, won her third straight cross-country running state title and swept the 1,600 and 3,200 events in track and field. As a skier, she was named to the U.S. Ski Team’s Developmental Team, was state Skimeister and competed at World Juniors. Kramer collected 14 state championships — six in track, five in skiing and three in cross-country running. She also won the Mount Marathon junior girls title in 2018. Kramer won the ASHOF Pride of Alaska girls award in 2019.

Williams swept the 100-, 200- and 400-meter Alaska D2 state titles in 2019 and was named the Gatorade Alaska Girls Track & Field Girls Player of the Year, a first for tiny Delta Junction High School. She maintained an A average in the classroom while winning seven state track titles before her senior year was canceled due to COVID-19. Williams placed fifth in 200 and 12th in the 100 at New Balance Nationals. She has signed with NCAA D1 Duke.

The Pride of Alaska Youth Award honors consistent excellence in athletic competition. It rewards an athlete or team that not only excelled in sports but did so with integrity and sportsmanship. Recipients must be in high school or younger at time of selection.

The winners will be announced May 6 at 2 p.m. ADT by Alaska Sports Hall of Fame executive director Harlow Robinson via Facebook Live on the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame Facebook page.

Courtesy of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.