Best Senior boys 2025-26
This is part of the Simmons superlatives - a recap of the top high school athletes in warren county chosen by Jeff Simmons.
The easiest list to write every year should be the seniors. After all, they've already done the work.
Their careers are complete, the stats are in the books, the championships have been won, the scholarships have been signed and all that's left is figuring out whose story stood out the most.
Except that's never how it works.
Every year I sit down to make this list and realize I'm comparing completely different journeys. One kid may have scored 1,300 points. Another may have helped build a soccer champion. One may have been the face of a basketball program, while another spent four years quietly becoming the backbone of a baseball team.
How do you compare all that? The answer is you really can't.
What you can do is recognize the seniors who left their mark.
These are the athletes who spent four years representing their schools, teammates and communities. Some have records, some have trophies, some have scholarships waiting on them, but what they all share is all of them leave behind a legacy.
And, for one final time, they get to hear their names called.
Keyton Reno, WCHS basketball
When I was a kid, I remember going to Pioneer games with a family friend and watching the WCHS boys basketball team. It wasn’t affectionally called the Dalt back then (side note: the signage looks awesome!), but it was still a place I thought was awesome and I always wondered if I would be good enough to play there.
But what really would make it a great night - aside from hearing the Space Jam soundtrack over and over (yes, I’m old) - was if one of the Pioneers were able to get on a breakaway and dunk. Whether it was Lamont Blevins or Dwight Wright, I just wanted to see somebody throw it down.
After I took over in 2010 to be the sports reporter, I never thought I’d become a dunk tracker, but it always registered when it happened because - if I’m being honest - it was almost like an eclipse: exceedingly rare and over in a split second.
That’s before Keyton Reno showed up and starting skying into the Dalt rafters on a nightly basis. He made spectacular dunks look routine and probably kept Brent Carden in business with all his posters.
And while Reno was much more than a dunker - I mean he was the District MVP as a senior - I do believe I think I’ll remember him the most for bringing the buzz back in the Dalt one dunk at a time.
Devin Fish, WCHS basketball
I love every crazy part of Warren County, but if there’s one faction of people I could do without (on social media), it’s the people who still will sit around and tell anybody who will listen, “coaches don’t play the best talent. They play the names.”
Look, I’m not going to hijack a section meant to celebrate Devin to go on a rant, but just know: I’ve seen the best of the best this county has had to offer over the last 16 years and Dev’s on that list. He’s on any list. He would’ve been a starter and main cog in 2025-26 (and before) if the Pioneers were coached by me, his dad, Chris Sullens or any other person who stepped on the sidelines at the Dalt over the last 30 years.
Through trials and tribulations, Box-and-1s and double teams and the scrutiny of being “the coach’s kid,” Dev showed up and performed for the Pioneers. He showed as a freshman he could step up in the clutch and ushered in one of the most exciting styles of basketball we’ve seen in Warren County in a while.
Bottom line: Warren County doesn’t stay near or atop the district standings over the last four years if Devin Fish doesn’t make the move from DeKalb County to Warren County before his freshman year. And that’s more than enough to me to remember him fondly as a Pioneer 4 Life.
Gabriel Cordova, WCHS soccer
There's a reason coaches love midfielders. They don't always get the headlines. They don't always score the goals. But when they're great, everybody around them gets better.
That was Gabriel Cordova for the Pioneers.
While Kaito Takahashi, Erik Hernandez and Guillermo Martinez were filling up the net this spring, Cordova was doing all the little things that helped Warren County become a district champion. He controlled the middle of the field, distributed the ball, defended when needed and constantly seemed to be in the right place at the right time.
That's why it wasn't a surprise when he was named District Midfielder of the Year. It was earned.
I've always thought the best compliment you can give a player is that they make winning look normal. That's what Cordova did for four years.
Every season he got a little better. Every season the Pioneers became a little more competitive. And by the time his career ended, Warren County was celebrating a district championship and preparing to host a region match.
That's not all because of Gabriel Cordova.
But it's definitely not happening without him either.
When you talk about the players who helped put Pioneer soccer back on the map, his name belongs near the very top of the list.
Sam Robinson, WCHS baseball/football
There were great moments on the gridiron last year, but it almost felt like the baseball player had one of the best ones. I’ll never forget Sam Robinson’s TD run on senior night, a culmination of a time where a kid got what he deserved in the best way.
See, Sam’s a baseball guy - and that’s why he’s going to the next level to play on the diamond more. But at one point in the fall of his senior year, he decided he could help the football team too.
He went to coach Eric Belew and didn’t beg for a starting spot or look for a promise of playing time. Robinson just thought if he practiced hard, supported his fellow seniors and brought 100 percent energy, it would help the Pioneers.
Sports have a funny way of rewarding guys like that and Robinson’s run on one of his final nights on football pads was an all-timer.
Oh yeah - he also was an unsung hero taking a beating behind the plate for the 21-win Pioneer baseball team. There’s no amount of praise possible for the things catchers have to do on a night-to-night basis to help their team, but I hope Robinson knows that the Pioneer faithful will remember his hard work.
Brady Swallows, WCHS football/baseball
I’ll spare you two rants in one column, but just know that I feel a lot of the same way about Brady that I do about Dev. It’s not easy to have a notable last name and even though some will say it’s a blessing, it probably doesn’t feel that way to a kid who has to work his tail off to extract every ounce of talent out of his body and still have people say he’s handed everything in life.
When you see the hug Brady shared with his dad, a former Mr. Football (who also happens to be Director of Schools), at homecoming, you understand why sports are the best thing in the world. That embrace will probably be forever remembered in the Swallows household - long after any stats or accolades either father or son accomplished are brought up.
And yet, Swallows did something I think any player with goals wants when they start suiting up for the Pioneers. He left his mark in the record books.
It may be a long time before somebody else steps up and breaks some of the marks Swallows was able to set as a senior. And he did it while delivering just the second winning season in Warren County in his lifetime.
Focus on what he wasn’t if you want (and you just like to be miserable). I’ll prefer to remember Brady as something that meant everything to him: Being a winner.
