(Chicago, IL) In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Logan Saloman of Hamilton High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year. Saloman is the fourth Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hamilton High School.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Saloman as Arizona’s best high school baseball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year award to be announced in June, Saloman joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo High School, Mich.), Jon Lester (2001-02, Bellarmine Preparatory School, Wash.), David Price (2003-04, Blackman High School, Tenn.), Clayton Kershaw (2005-06, Highland Park High School, Texas), Rick Porcello (2006-07, Seaton Hall Preparatory School, N.J.) and Kris Bryant (2009-10, Bonanza High School, Nev.).
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound senior right-handed pitcher and infielder led the Huskies to a 29-4 record and the Conference 6A state championship this past season. Saloman compiled an 11-0 record on the mound with a 1.70 ERA, walking just five batters while recording 52 strikeouts in 61.2 innings pitched. The Conference 6A Defensive Player of the Year, Saloman hit two home runs and knocked in 12 on the year. He was a member of the USA Baseball Under-15 National Team that won the gold medal at the COPABE Pan-American championships in 2019.
Saloman has volunteered locally providing meals and presents to families in need during the holiday season, and he has donated his time as a peer math tutor. “Without Logan, Hamilton doesn’t win the state championship,” said Dave Webb, head coach of Corona del Sol High School. “He is in control of the game even when you think he might be losing it. He throws all of his pitches for strikes.”
Saloman has maintained a 3.95 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball on scholarship at Arizona State University this fall.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport. Saloman joins recent Gatorade Arizona Baseball Players of the Year Wes Kath (2020-21, Desert Mountain High School), Brock Selvidge (2019-20, Hamilton High School), Ronan Kopp (2018-19, Scottsdale Christian Academy), and Matt Liberatore (2017-18, Mountain Ridge High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field. Through Gatorade’s “Play it Forward” platform, Middleton has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization of their choosing that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports. Middleton is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.
Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate studentathletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
Reprinted from AZPreps365 – Seth Polansky
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