Kate Sherman

The athletic achievement portion of Kate Sherman’s high school resume requires multiple volumes, like a set of encyclopedias.

A grand pair of bookends complete the picture, though, as the Mohonasen High graduate bracketed her outstanding career as a distance runner with a stellar academic record on one side, and a busy schedule of school and community service on the other.

For that, Sherman was named to the Capital District Sports Women of the Year’s class of 2021.

“I was very honored to be picked as one of them, and I was honestly kind of shocked, because I didn’t know it was an award that was do-able for me,” she said. “But I thought it was really cool, and it’s really great that they were doing specifically a women’s award.”

Over the course of her running career at Mohonasen, Sherman broke 11 school records at various distances in indoor and outdoor track, while winning multiple Section II championships, and holds the school record on almost all of the cross country courses that Mohonasen typically competes on.

She reached the cross country state meet for the first of three times as a freshman, and finished 16th there as a sophomore and seventh as a junior, while winning the Section II championship and earning all-state first-team honors, a first for a Mohon runner.

Sherman said her most memorable race was a third at sectionals when she was a freshman, because, for one thing, it served as a springboard for everything that followed.

“That was my first time going to states, and I feel like it was the first time that I performed really well and it was that start of everything like that, because I went to states two years after that, too,” she said.

“It definitely helped me prepare better. I knew what to expect for when I would actually be more competitive in the state meet.”

During her pandemic-disrupted senior season, Sherman managed to be named Mohonasen’s Athlete of the Year while also earning the Artemis Award for having the highest athletic point total and a 96.7 academic average. She has been a NYSPHSAA scholar-athlete every season and serves on the Mohonasen Athlete Advisory Committee and served on the Suburban Council Athlete Leadership Council for two years.

Sherman was an officer for the Mohonasen Student Athletic Club, a community service organization involved in activities such as Toys for Tots, City Mission, Mohon Food Pantry and Anchor Room, which collects clothing donations for students.

“And with our team, we always do a Thanksgiving food drive and put together boxes,” she said. “My school helps a lot with that, but also my parents helped me get involved in stuff like that. It feels good to know you’re helping someone, especially at the holidays like Thanksgiving. It’s really important, and I always feel happy after.”

Sherman will attend Iona College, where she will run track and cross country and plans to major in political science.