A soccer player from Archbishop Hoban and a soccer player from Copley have been voted the Akron-area high school athletes of the week for Oct. 19-25, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Bailey Huckabee of Hoban won the girls vote, and Reid Link of Copley won the boys vote.
Huckabee received 74.5% of the votes cast, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Link received 37.1% of the votes cast. A total of 5,553 votes were cast overall, according to the Beacon Journal.
Huckabee earned the honor after scoring three goals in Hoban’s 13-0 win over Triway, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. The hat trick headlined a dominant sectional performance by the Knights.
Link earned the honor after scoring two goals in Copley’s 3-0 win over West Geauga in a Division III, Northeast 4 sectional final, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. The two-goal game sent Copley forward in the postseason bracket.
The athlete of the week vote returns next Tuesday on beaconjournal.com, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Winners in the fall are not eligible to win again until the winter sports season begins, under the poll’s standing rule noted by the Beacon Journal.
The latest winners join a fall list that has recognized athletes across the Akron area. The Oct. 23 winners were Logan Romanini of Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy in cross country and Naseer Williams-Clay of East in football, according to the Beacon Journal’s winners list.
For Hoban, Huckabee’s three-goal game is the kind of sectional-round statement that carries into the next round, where opponents key on the player who just scored a hat trick. For Copley, Link’s two goals in a sectional final show a finisher delivering when the season is on the line.
High school soccer in the Akron area has reached the win-or-go-home part of the fall. Sectional results now set up district play, and performances like these are what separate teams that advance from teams whose seasons end.
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A hat trick in a 13-0 sectional win is not just a scoring line — it signals how completely Hoban controlled that match. When one player scores three times in a postseason game, it usually means her teammates were creating chances in waves and she was finishing them, which is exactly the combination teams need as the bracket tightens.
Copley’s win carries a different kind of weight. A 3-0 result in a sectional final, with Link scoring two of the three goals, is a clean, controlled postseason performance — a shutout at one end and a clear finisher at the other — and it sends Copley into the next round with momentum rather than relief.
The weekly vote itself is a snapshot of community engagement around Akron-area sports. More than 5,500 votes in a single week, reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, shows how strongly families, classmates and local fans rally behind their schools’ athletes during the fall postseason.
Huckabee’s 74.5% share of the girls vote was a runaway result, while Link’s 37.1% led a more divided boys field, according to the percentages reported by the Akron Beacon Journal. Both outcomes still required their schools’ supporters to show up in the poll throughout the week.
Fall athlete-of-the-week honors have rotated across sports this season — cross country and football winners were recognized just last week, on Oct. 23 — which makes a soccer sweep this week a reminder of how deep the Akron area’s fall sports scene runs beyond the Friday night spotlight.
For both players, the honor is recognition, not a destination. The postseason continues this week, and the performances that earned this vote will need to be repeated against stronger opponents if Hoban and Copley are going to keep playing into November.
What happens next is the next round of postseason soccer for Hoban and Copley, and a new athlete-of-the-week ballot next Tuesday. NewsForce247 will follow both teams as the tournament continues.