Olympic gold medalist Lydia Jacoby headlines winners of Alaska Sports Hall of Fame’s annual awards

Seward’s Lydia Jacoby was named the winner of the The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame’s Pride of Alaska Girls Award on Wednesday. Jacoby claimed a gold medal in the 100-yard breaststroke and a silver medal in the 4X100 medley relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics that were held in 2021 in Tokyo.

The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame honored Jacoby and a half dozen others as part of its Director’s Awards, which were announced this week.

Other finalists in the category included 4A high school girls basketball Gatorade Player of the Year Sayvia Sellers of Anchorage Christian School and Service High School skier Marit Flora.

Obed Vargas of Anchorage is the recipient of the 2022 Pride of Alaska Boys Award after he became the third youngest player to make his MLS debut at just 15 years old for the Seattle Sounders. He received the honor over Gatorade Player of the Year for high school football Kyler Johnson of Bettye Davis East and four-time wrestling state champion Landen Smith of Bethel.

Olympic skier Scott Patterson of Anchorage was the recipient of the 2022 Pride of Alaska Male award after he recorded the best men’s nordic skiing result at the Olympics since 1976, with an eighth-place finish in the 50-kilometer freestyle. He did so with a broken wrist that limited his training and nearly cost him a spot at the Olympics. Patterson also won the Crow Pass Crossing for the seventh time in 2021 by shattering the record with a run of 2 hours, 50 minutes.

The other finalists for the award were Boston Bruins rookie goaltender Jeremy Swayman, also of Anchorage, and double amputee runner Marko Cheseto, formerly of UAA.

After helping Ohio State claim the NCAA Division I women’s national hockey championship, Anchorage’s Clair DeGeorge was named the recipient of the 2022 Pride of Alaska Female Award. DeGeorge scored a goal and assisted on another in Buckeyes’ 3-2 win over Minnesota-Duluth. She finished her college career ranked third all-time among Alaska’s women’s scores with 125 points (on 44 and 81 assists) in 166 games.

The other two finalists for the honor were Olympic skier Rosie Brennan and Sitka’s Sydnee Kimber, who won her third straight collegiate women’s wrestling national championship for McKendree University.

The Trajan Langdon Award is an honor given to an adult and youth athlete that exemplified leadership, sportsmanship and inspiration. The 2022 adult recipient is Olympic nordic skier Hannah Halvorsen and the youth recipient is Point Lay High School student and athlete Jeremy Lane.

The 2022 recipient of the Joe Floyd Award, commemorating lasting and significant community contribution through sports, is Beth Bragg. Bragg retired as sports editor in 2021 after 35 years at Anchorage Daily News, primarily covering sports.

The other two finalists for the award were Kathie Bethard, a community organizer in Anchorage and chairwoman of Save Seawolf Hockey, and Kathleen Navarre of Dimond High School, who also serves as a ASAA coach and administrator.