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Having a heart condition when she was younger, Manteno senior Ava Peterson spent a lot of time in hospitals.
That wound up helping her chart a course for the future.
“I fell in love with the medical field,” Peterson said. “Growing up, I told people I wanted to be a lawyer. And then I spent some time there and I was like, ‘I think I love the medical field.’ I started looking into it more and I was like, this is a field I can actually see myself in.”
That requires a significant commitment in the classroom, and which is what Peterson has.
Last week, she was one of 26 students statewide named to the IHSA Academic All-State Team.
To qualify, student-athletes needed to hold a grade-point average of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, to take part in at least two IHSA sports or activities and “demonstrate outstanding citizenship.”
Peterson checks all the boxes. She has a 5.5 GPA while scoring 1,540 on the SAT and 34 on the ACT. She plays volleyball, basketball and softball for the Panthers and is committed to NCAA Division III Washington University in St. Louis as a softball pitcher and outfielder.
She plans to major in biology on a pre-med track with the intention of studying anesthesiology.
How does she juggle honors classes with three sports? As a junior, she routinely had three or four hours of homework a night, though that workload has dropped this school year.
“The biggest thing is I just got a routine and I really stuck with it,” Peterson said. “When I was in season, I would go to practice, come home right away, start on homework and hold myself to getting that homework done before I was going out with friends or watching TV. And then on game days, trying to get that stuff done before and just really making sure to keep that a priority.”
Ditto for playing three sports.
“I’ve always made the time,” she said. “Of course, it’d be nice to have a little free time here and there. But then it came down (to deciding) and my parents were like, ‘OK, well, what are you gonna quit?’
“And there was just nothing. There wasn’t a sport where I was like, ‘Oh, I could see my life without (it).'”
Manteno softball coach Josh Carlile, meanwhile, can’t see the Panthers without Peterson.
“She shows what ‘right’ looks like,” he said. “Leads by example, tireless work ethic. She’s a great kid, destined for really big things.”
The Academic All-State honor didn’t surprise Carlile at all.
“I posted on social media the other day there’s nobody I can think of that deserves it more,” he said. “I wasn’t just blowing smoke. She is top notch in everything she does: her schoolwork, her athletics, her clubs, her volunteer (work) — everything she does, she does with 100% effort.”
The post Manteno’s Ava Peterson named Academic All-State appeared first on Southwest Regional Publishing.
