Nashua South sprinter Soraya Ross is the NH Gatorade Girls Track Player of the Year. (File photo courtesy of Nashua Huddle)

School’s out for summer, and today begins the only month of the year when there is no high school in-season or tournament sporting event.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t news:

First, Nashua South girls track sensation Soraya Ross’s fantastic 2022 spring season certainly did not go unnoticed as she was named the New Hampshire Gatoade Girls Track & Field Player of the Year

Ross is one of the fastest athletes in the state. She won the 100 and 200 meter dashes at the Division I Girls Championships, setting a meet record in the former with a time of 12.19. She also anchored the Panthers’ winning 4×100 relay team, helping to produce another meet record time of 49.29.

She won the 100, 200 and also anchored the winning 4×100 relay in the Meet of Champions as well, but Ross didn’t stop there. She finished fourth in the 100 in the New Englands.

Simply put, Ross has speed to burn.

“Soraya is a unique athlete with a gift of top-end speed like we had never seen before,” South girls track coach Catrina Lougee said, adding that in New Hampshire track circles Ross is nicknamed “The Closer”.

“That’s because she doesn’t have the best start, but she can really close races and bring excitement to the sport.”

Ross is the first South girls track athlete to ever win the award. She is now a finalist for Gatorades National Player of the Year which will be announced in July.

Gatorade also takes into consideration off-the-field accomplishments as well. In the classroom, Ross has weighted 4.50 grade point average, is a member of South’s Student Leadership Council and has volunteered in the community, working with youth track programs.

And don’t forget, she’s one of the top scoring threats on the wing for the South girls soccer team.

“She earned this award through her ability to do all the little things, day in and day out,” Lougee said. “She is a talented athlete with a motivation and drive to perfect her craft … Soraya is a once in a generation athlete whose athleticism in both soccer and track & field, along with her drive to succeed in the classroom helped her reach this accolade as only a sophomore.

“Her contributions to our team, school and community will last for years to come.”

VANDY GETTING A DANDY

This isn’t exactly high school but the subject is a Bishop Guertin alum. Former BG quarterback Hayden Moses will be playing football and studying next year at Vanderbilt after spending his college freshman year as the No. 2 QB at Division III Grinnell College in

At Grinnell Moses played in nine games, completed 23 of 51 passes for 321 yards and three TDS, with four interceptions and a passer rating of 101.69. He rushed 28 times for 79 yards and a touchdown.

Vanderbilt opens up the 2022 season at the University of Hawaii. Moses, some may recall, missed most of his senior season at BG after suffering a knew injury in the Manchester Jamboree. But a couple of months following surgery he suited up for the Cardinals’ regular season finale and took a snap late in the game for an emotional moment.

MURRAY TO FRANKLIN PIERCE

In more college news, Bishop Guertin girls basketball guard Liv Murray has accepted a full scholarship offer to study and play basketball at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge. Murray will, of course, play her senior season next winter at Guertin, where she has formed a solid backcourt tandem with Cards point guard Brooke Paquette. Both averaged 13 points a game, and Murray was an All-State Second Teamer.

“Other than Paquette and (Division II Player of the Year Elizabeth of Hollis Brookline) Stapelfeld, I don’t think there’s a better player in the area,” Guertin coach Brad Kreick said at the end of last season.

Apparently, Frankline Pierce agreed. Paquette, who is also going into her senior year, is headed to Stonehill and Stapelfeld to St. Joseph’s of Maine.

COACHING OPENINGS

Evidently Hollis Brookline and Merrimack aren’t the only area schools who will have a new boys soccer coach this fall.

The coach of the Alvirne Broncos the last three years, Marcos Vieira Filho won’t be returning as the Broncos had advertised for a new varsity boys soccer coach (as well as a new girls volleyball coach). The departures of Vieira Filho and Brad Hosey from Merrimack means the area is minus two former Daniel Webster College players off the Matt Correa coaching tree. Hosey this past winter took the head job at Fitchburg State. Before coaching the Tomahawks, he had been the coach at Becker College, but that school closed.

Alvirne was 6-9-1 last fall, while Merrimack went 4-12.

JOB WELL DONE

Earlier this week was former Milford athletic director Marc Maurais’ – that looks strange, doesn’t it – final day on the job. The retiring (at least from Milford) Maurais handed the reins over to former Milford Middle School AD Don Gutterson after a brilliant 30-year tenure as the Spartans AD. A job well done, and it will not be the same without him there, for certain.

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