Readers can now vote for Seacoast high school girls and boys Athletes of the Week for Sept. 14-19, the third installment of the feature for the 2026 fall season, according to Foster's Daily Democrat. Voting runs through two ballots and closes at midnight Thursday, Sept. 24, with winners announced Friday, Sept. 25 at seacoastonline.com/sports and fosters.com/sports.
The nominee list is strong, and that is exactly what makes it interesting. Ten athletes made the cut, and they earned it in very different ways: a goalkeeper with 20 saves across two matches, a cross country runner who broke a meet and course record, a volleyball setter who filled three stat columns across three wins, and a running back with five touchdowns. A vote like this is really a question about what a great week looks like. The ballot does not answer that for you.
Worth noting before the polls close: nominations for future weeks are open by email to [email protected], photos welcome. Here is a second look at the field, and at what each kind of performance is asking you to weigh. For more coverage like this, the publication's athletes section tracks performance across sports and levels.
Who is on the boys ballot, and what did they do?
Five boys are nominated, per Foster's Daily Democrat. The headliner on raw numbers is Carter Lambert of Somersworth, who rushed for 205 yards and scored five touchdowns in a 35-32 win over Monadnock on Friday, Sept. 18. That is a heavy load in a one-score game, and the margin tells you Somersworth needed every carry. This connects to our earlier piece, Load Monitoring, ACWR and Injury Risk: An Honest Audit.
Tommy Allen of Portsmouth/Oyster River did two jobs in a 38-7 win over Spaulding the same night: 93 total yards and a touchdown on offense, plus two interceptions on defense. Two-way production is harder to see in a single stat line, which is part of the case for him and part of the case against, depending on what you value.
The soccer nominees split by role. Grayson Ahn scored twice in Oyster River's 3-0 win over Lebanon on Friday, Sept. 18. Ned Grieg scored two in Marshwood's 5-1 win over Massabesic on Wednesday, Sept. 16, in a match where the outcome was comfortable. Nate Dillon of Winnacunnet scored both goals in consecutive 1-1 ties against Windham and Portsmouth, which is a different shape of week: fewer wins, but his goals were the whole margin both times.
Who is on the girls ballot?
The girls side, also per Foster's Daily Democrat, runs from volume scoring to a record run. Lexi Paterna of Exeter set a meet and course record at Derryfield Park, running 17 minutes 57 seconds to win the 52nd Manchester Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 19. A course record is a fixed, verifiable number, which makes it the hardest nominee to argue against on its own terms.
Fiona McAfee of Winnacunnet had three goals and three assists in an 8-0 win over Timberlane on Wednesday, Sept. 16, then added a goal in a 3-1 win over Bedford on Friday, Sept. 18. Bea Monahan of Portsmouth Christian Academy posted three straight volleyball wins with stacked lines, including 24 assists, three aces and 13 digs in a 3-1 win over Inter-Lakes on Saturday.
Stella Hoium scored the game's lone goal off a corner kick with five minutes left in Portsmouth's 1-0 win over Londonderry on Tuesday, Sept. 15. One goal, one moment, and it decided the match.
And then there is the nominee with no wins at all. Grace Cayer-Salema of St. Thomas Aquinas made 13 saves in a 0-0 tie with Milford on Friday, Sept. 18, after seven saves in a 2-1 loss to Pembroke on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Twenty saves in a week is a genuine case for a goalkeeper, and it raises the fairest question on the ballot.
Should a great week in a losing effort win?
This is the trade-off the ballot leaves to voters. Cayer-Salema's Saints did not win either match, yet her performance is arguably the most context-dependent on the list. A keeper facing 20 shots is doing her job; a forward scoring five is doing his. Both are real. The honest answer is that athlete-of-the-week votes reward visibility as much as merit, and a stat line you can skim beats a performance you have to reconstruct.
A measured take: Lambert's five touchdowns and Paterna's course record are the safest picks on raw evidence. Dillon and Cayer-Salema are the picks for voters who weight context, opposition, and match state. Neither reading is wrong. That is the point of a vote.
How do you vote, and when?
The mechanics are simple. Two ballots, one for girls and one for boys, listed in the Foster's story. Voting closes at midnight Thursday, Sept. 24. Winners are announced in a story published Friday, Sept. 25 on the Seacoast sites. The same report notes the feature will continue weekly through the fall season.
One caveat worth stating plainly: this is a reader vote, not an evaluation by coaches or a statistical body. It measures engagement as well as performance. Treat it as a celebration of a good week of high school sport, not a ranking. And for readers weighing training questions of their own, the evidence-based takes on training at this publication are a better guide than any ballot. This article is coverage of a community feature, not advice on any athlete's individual program. Readers following this should also see What the Evidence Says About Creatine and Athletic Performance.
