Leavitt junior quarterback Noah Carpenter racked up 3,180 total yards and threw or ran for 39 touchdowns while leading the Hornets to a perfect season and the Class C state championship. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
Noah Carpenter has received another honor for his stellar football season this past fall.
The Leavitt Area High School junior quarterback has been named the 2022-23 Gatorade Maine Football Player of the Year.
“Couldn’t be more thankful to receive Gatorade Player of the Year,” Carpenter wrote on Twitter on Friday morning. “Thank you to all my teammates and coaches for pushing me to constantly get better.”
Couldn’t be more thankful to receive Gatorade Player of the Year. Thank you to all my teammates and coaches for pushing me to constantly get better. @Gatorade #GPOY pic.twitter.com/Y7IUoPwoce
— Noah Carpenter (@N_Carpenter6) January 6, 2023
Carpenter led the Hornets through a dominating 11-0 season that culminated in a Class C state championship in November. He passed for 2,006 yards and 27 touchdowns, completing 66.1% of his passes, and ran for 1,174 yards and 22 touchdowns — a total of 3,180 yards and 39 scores.
“He’s a terrific runner with size, power and breakaway speed,” Cheverus coach Mike Vance said in a news release from Gatorade. “He’s extremely accurate and makes all the throws, powers the ball downfield on a rope and (puts touch on it) whenever necessary.”
He also was a standout on defense as a defensive back, picking off two passes and making 77 tackles. He also is the Hornets’ kicker (making 10 of 13 PATs) and punter.
“There really isn’t a game in which he didn’t show up in all phases of the game, and in the biggest games he played his best football,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway told the Sun Journal in November. “That kind of poise, intensity and execution week to week is rare and it’s because of his consistent work habits.”
Carpenter is the second Leavitt player to win the Gatorade Maine Football Player of the Year award, joining Wyatt Hathaway, who earned the honor in 2020-21. Those two and last year’s winner, Eli Soehren of Oxford Hills, make three consecutive recipients from the Sun Journal’s coverage area.
The award, according to the news release from Gatorade, “recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field.” Carpenter volunteers with Leavitt’s Unified Sports club chapter as well as the Hornet Pride camp and Leavitt Area High School’s student council.
Earning the Maine award also makes Carpenter a finalist for the Gatorade National Football Player of the Year award, which will be announced in January. The news release said that Carpenter also “receives a grant to give to one of Gatorade’s social impact partners.”
Since the end of the season, Carpenter also has been named the Sun Journal All-Region Football Player of the Year and the Varsity Maine Football Player of the Year.
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