We gave you, the reader, the chance to have your voice heard, and you came out and voted.
This was your opportunity to pick your Male Athlete of the Year, and you resoundingly chose Byron’s Andrew Talbert. Talbert was Byron’s star quarterback and star pitcher for the baseball team.
“It was an exciting season,” Talbert said. “But the things I’ll remember the most about the football and baseball seasons this year were the way they ended… I’m hungry for some good finishes next year.”
Talbert hit .370 as a sophomore shortstop/pitcher/center fielder, and he broke Super Bowl champion Sean Considine’s school record with 10 home runs. He was 9-1 with a 1.30 ERA and 96 strikeouts on the mound. One of Talbert’s highlights this season was when he threw his second straight no-hitter and also hit two home runs as Byron clinched the Big Northern Conference title with a 10-0 win over North Boone.
But the baseball team from Byron had its record 28-game win streak snapped with a 9-2 loss to Johnsburg in the Class 2A sectional semifinals back on May 28.
That was a similar ending to the football teams’ postseason run. The football Tigers, led by Talbert’s rushing and passing attack at QB, were the defending Class 3A state champions, but a 2-point try with 10 seconds left came up inches short in a 14-13 second-round road defeat to Lombard Montini.
Both teams had impressive runs, however, and both should be back strong next year. With plenty of help from Talbert.
Talbert then went out and earned over 70 percent of the votes to win your version of the Male Athlete of the Year honor for the 2024-2025 school year of sports. See the poll below for the complete results.
Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and sign up for the Rockford High School Sports Newsletter here at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears and Blackhawks to local youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Find out who you chose as Rockford’s Male Athlete of the Year in our annual postseason poll
Reporting by Jay Taft, Rockford Register Star / Rockford Register Star
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