Here’s how Penns Valley’s Maria Lovallo and Colton Sands earned Snyder Award recognition
Editor’s note: Stories on all of Centre County’s Snyder Award winners will run together in print on June 6, after they’re all announced.
Two Penns Valley seniors will now have an award to take with them as they end their high school careers.
Maria Lovallo and Colton Sands were named Penns Valley’s 2021 Snyder Award winners at the high school Tuesday evening. The two students excelled as athletes, in the classroom and in the community during their time as Rams.
Winning the award was made sweeter, for both, by who they won it with.
“He’s a really good guy and it’s been an honor to win this award alongside him,” Lovallo said.
Sands added: “We’re very good friends. I admire her work ethic and she’s probably the most driven person I know academically and athletically. To be recognized in that same academic and athletic realm is humbling.”
The James H. Snyder Awards are given in memory of Snyder, a former Centre Daily Times sports editor who was killed in an automobile crash in December of 1957. The awards have become an annual county staple celebrating the community’s young leaders — a pair of seniors from each of the county’s five public high schools plus Saint Joseph’s who embrace academics, athletics and community service.
Lovallo and Sands found plenty of success as athletes in their time at Penns Valley. Lovallo was a captain of the girls’ soccer team over the last two seasons and helped her teammates navigate the difficulties of playing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Her greatest accomplishment as an athlete came when her and her teammates made it to the second round of the district tournament as a sophomore.
“Our greatest achievement was getting to that point as a team, learning to play together, gelling together, and finding a way to make it work,” she said.
Sands has a litany of accomplishments as a long-distance runner, including back-to-back PIAA Class A individual cross country titles in his junior and senior year. He takes most pride in his non-calendar year triple crown: winning the cross country individual title as a junior and senior, the indoor track 3k title as a junior and the outdoor 3,200m title as a sophomore.
“Winning that showed that, not only could I be competitive for one season, I could compete in all three seasons,” Sands said. “And not just against the small school runners in outdoor track and cross country, but against the 3A guys in indoor.”
The two participated in a variety of activities away from sports, including Lovallo doing Pennies for Patients — which involved collecting change for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society — and Sands volunteering at the food bank at the Grace United Methodist Church. Both also helped organize the Penns Valley Hope Fund Turkey Trot and competed in the academic decathlon together.
Their time on the academic decathlon team — when they made it to nationals — was something both cited as one of their favorite non-athletic accomplishments.
“We were not expecting to go to nationals,” Lovallo said. “We hadn’t been to nationals in a very long time. Getting to do that together and putting on a strong performance overall, I was really proud to be a part of that.”
Sands added: “To help send our team to nationals this year was incredibly fun. I really like the big group of people we have for Ac-Dec.”
Lovallo and Sands want to carry their achievements at Penns Valley with them to college, as well.
Lovallo will be attending Penn State where she plans on majoring in microbiology and hopes to play intramural soccer. The Penns Valley senior said her love for the science field has grown, especially over the past year.
“This pandemic has definitely piqued my interest,” she said. “But what really got me in love with microbiology was this idea of antimicrobial resistance. It’s basically when bacteria can develop a resistance to the antibiotics we use to treat them. I thought that was really cool because we have all of these treatments developed and now they’re not working anymore. Looking at how we have treatable infections that are now becoming more dangerous and thinking, ‘Hey, maybe I could be the person to do something about this,’ is really what piqued my interest.”
Sands will be attending the University of North Carolina, where he’ll be a long-distance runner. He’s undecided on his major but is looking to major in something that will help him understand — and be a part of — the solution to climate change.
“I took a class at Penn State this fall and it was really focused on climate change and how that’s going to be affecting our world for the next 50 years,” Sands said. “Not only did I find that very interesting, I also found that very disturbing. It was kind of a call to action. Someone needs to do something, why don’t I be that someone and dedicate myself to the whole state of our world?”
Both are poised to have success at the next level and credit their time in Penns Valley for helping them grow as people.
“One word that definitely comes to mind when you think of Penns Valley is definitely community,” Lovallo said. “It’s so tight-knit and supportive. The fact that we have this great network of people who are all supportive of one another, just having that strong safety net has allowed me to take risks and in doing so flourish as a student and an athlete.”
Sands added: “When I came into high school I was not the person I am now. ... Penns Valley has molded me into the kind of person that I’m proud to be.”
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 9:19 PM.
