Salas and Paxton Receive WyoPreps Athlete of the Week Awards [VIDEOS]

Isabell Salas and Parker Paxton are the first winners of the WyoPreps Athlete of the Week Awards presented by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Wyoming.

Both senior golfers dominated their competition during the first week of the high school fall sports season, Aug. 9-12, 2023.

Salas, from Green River High School, won the Star Valley Invite golf tournament at the Valli Vu Golf Course on Aug. 9 and 10, 2023. She fired rounds of 69 and 70 for a total of 139. Salas finished 30 shots ahead of the field. Not a bad way to start your season.

WyoPreps spoke with Salas about her tournament, how a victory like that can springboard her through the rest of the season, the focus on her game while not playing the other players at the top of Class 3A, and what she feels she needs to improve upon.

Paxton, from Riverton High School, won the Douglas Invite on Aug. 9 and 10, 2023. The golf tournament was at the Douglas Community Golf Club. After an opening round 65 for a five-stroke lead, Paxton set a new ‘competitive’ course record from the white tees at the DCGC with a final round 62. That turned his margin of victory into 17 shots. It was another dominating performance from perhaps the best boys’ golfer in the state.

WyoPreps caught up with Paxton on Wednesday night after he played at the U.S. Amateur Golf Championships in Colorado. We discussed Douglas, the course record, what he's working on with his game, and even joked about Parker-proofing courses around Wyoming.

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Both golfers will be under consideration for our first WyoPreps Athlete of the Year awards for boys and girls golf in Wyoming. Those honors will be announced later this fall.

Nominations for each week’s awards are accepted from 5 p.m. on Fridays through 9 a.m. on Mondays. Those can come from anyone.

Winners are announced each Wednesday. WyoPreps does reserve the right to modify the nomination timeline. If we modify it, WyoPreps will notify fans, coaches, and administrators of any change.

Editor’s Note: The Cheyenne Sixers were not considered in the running for the first award because at the time of the cut-off, Saturday, Aug. 12, they were still playing in the American Legion World Series. They could have played through Aug. 15, which is in the current week’s window of competition. WyoPreps wanted to wait to see how they performed before including them in our next round of awards.