Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

sun standout awards:

These Las Vegas student-athletes excelled on playing field, classroom

Vanessa Sanchez

Vanessa Sanchez (7) starred in soccer and flag football for Chaparral High. The dual-sport athlete is just as relentless in her academic pursuits: She plans to study mechanical engineering at MIT.

Editor’s Note: The Las Vegas Sun’s annual showcase of the best in high school sports, the Sun Standout Awards, was canceled this month as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19. While the pandemic may have pushed the event off the calendar until 2021, our commitment to spotlighting prep sports is undiminished. Our local athletes did some amazing things, both on and off the field. Today, we share their stories.

Vanessa Sanchez was a star on the flag football field, but the Chaparral senior is no rocket scientist — yet.

Sanchez, who played linebacker, receiver and quarterback last winter, will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall to study mechanical engineering. Her long-term goal? A job at NASA, where she hopes to fulfill her dream of designing and building rockets.

“I like math and building stuff,” Sanchez says. “I plan to apply to NASA and work on rockets and propulsion systems and spacecraft. I want to work on something beyond myself, and when you’re talking about rockets and sending people out there [into space], there’s no better way to do that.”

Sanchez used her brain as well as her athleticism to make eye-popping plays on both sides of the ball this season. Sanchez wrapped her senior season by scoring 16 offensive touchdowns (nine receiving, seven rushing). She also nabbed nine interceptions and returned two for scores.

Chaparral flag football coach Bret Kinkead calls Sanchez one of the quietest players he has worked with, but also one of the most well-rounded.

“Vanessa worked hard,” Kinkead says. “There was a play last year that I’ve never seen from a lady. Vanessa was reading the quarterback, and the QB threw it and she broke on it, picked it off with one hand and almost took it back for a touchdown. I looked at my assistant coach like, ‘Holy moly.’ Not only does she have great athletic ability, but she works at it. She’s smart and she cares.”

Sanchez’s tireless work in the classroom has already earned her more than $700,000 in scholarships. She also received the QuestBridge Scholarship to Princeton University, though she says her final college choice came down to MIT and Stanford (“I applied to Princeton just in case,” Sanchez says).

Though Sanchez’s future lies in outer space, she says she’ll remember her achievements on the field fondly.

“I just had fun playing,” Sanchez says. “Flag football has been my best high school experience. Looking back, I’ll remember the team more than anything I did individually. Going out there with my team every day — I played other sports, but flag football practice was the thing I really looked forward to.”

• • •

Joel Hemintakoon not only anchored the Shadow Ridge wrestling team this season, the senior also cleaned up academically.

Hemintakoon recorded a perfect 36 on his ACT exam and earned a score of 5 (the highest possible mark) on his AP Biology, AP Calculus BC, AP Computer Science Principles and AP English tests. His GPA of 4.8 had him in contention for valedictorian as of this writing.

On the mat, Hemintakoon took home the 4A Mountain Region title at 160 pounds and helped Shadow Ridge to a second-place finish at the state meet.

Hemintakoon is a finalist for the National Merit scholarship and plans to study medicine in college.