Male Under-the-Radar Athletes
This is part of the Simmons superlatives - a recap of the top high school athletes in warren county chosen by Jeff Simmons.
I tend to always feel like a bit of a failure the moment I put out the Most Under-the-Radar Athlete story each year. That’s because it’s my job to give kids their shine, so if they’re still under the radar, then I didn’t do my job well enough.
Thankfully, with the Warren County Way, I can at least know that you don’t have to pay to get the best local sports coverage anymore, so maybe I can ditch this list by 2027. But if you do want to pay for something, do yourself a favor and go pay to watch some of these guys play.
I promise you won’t consider it money wasted.
These are guys who either play sports that rarely steal the spotlight, work in the shadows on rosters with big names or just downright go out and do the dirty work that rarely stuffs the stat sheet. But I saw them and they impressed me.
Raul Manus, WCHS football/wrestling
Monster Manus is what I liked to call him all year.
Man, what a mauler he is.
It all started in the fall when he delivered some truly bone-crushing hits for the Pioneers, then it continued in the winter when anybody who had to step into the circle with him was about to have a bad day.
And yet, when he’s not competing, Raul is probably one of the nicest kids you’ll ever meet. While I was with my family after graduation, I noticed Raul - almost always smiling and surrounded by friends - flying out of Nunley Stadium and had to give him a quick congratulations for all his accomplishments.
What I didn’t expect was a big hug and him wanting to take a quick picture.
But that’s just Manus. He’s a kid who really impresses me with how much he seems to enjoy life and live in the moment.
In football movies, there are countless tropes of the old guy trying to live vicariously through their son, or the Uncle Ricos of the world who will tell anybody who will listen that their coach screwed them over.
Raul is the antithesis of that. He left Warren County knowing he gave every ounce of energy and effort on the gridiron and on the mat.
That’s a heckuva way to go out.
I’m going to miss the monster this fall.
Kaito Takahashi, WCHS soccer
It’s funny how quickly people can get spoiled.
Kaito Takahashi scored 22 goals this season, helped lead Warren County to a district championship, earned first-team all-district honors and was the centerpiece of one of the best soccer teams the school has produced in years.
And yet somehow, it felt like he flew under the radar.
Maybe it’s because soccer still doesn’t command the attention of football and basketball. Maybe it’s because Warren County’s success was built around a collection of stars instead of one dominant player. Or maybe people just got used to seeing Takahashi score.
Every time the Pioneers needed a spark, it felt like Takahashi delivered it - a breakaway goal, a perfectly timed run or a big moment in a district match. He had a knack for showing up when Warren County needed him most.
The district championship win over Shelbyville will be remembered as one of the biggest victories in recent program history, and Takahashi was right in the middle of it.
That’s where he spent most of the spring: right in the middle of everything good that happened for Pioneer soccer.
Brett Peterson, WCHS tennis
Timing is everything.
Unfortunately for Brett Peterson, he played one of his best seasons during a spring where Warren County sports were overflowing with headlines.
Baseball started 12-0. Soccer won a district championship. Luke Saldana (yeah, we’ll have more on him later this week) was busy launching shot puts into orbit and rewriting the record book every other week.
Meanwhile, Peterson quietly went about being one of the best tennis players in District 9-AA.
The Pioneer senior spent the year holding down the No. 1 singles spot, routinely taking on the toughest competition Warren County faced. He wasn’t ducking anybody. He was getting everybody’s best shot.
And he kept winning.
His postseason run alongside Joshua Caten ended with a district runner-up finish and a trip to the region tournament, extending a season that deserved far more attention than it received.
Maybe that’s the nature of tennis.
There aren’t packed stadiums. There aren’t Friday night lights. There usually aren’t hundreds of people talking about what happened the next morning.
But make no mistake about it, Peterson was one of the most accomplished athletes Warren County produced this year.
He just happened to do it a little quieter than most.
jax Grissom, Boyd soccer/basketball
I don’t know if they’ll have to retire the cartwheels at Boyd games next year, but I do know it won’t be the same if Grissom isn’t the one doing them.
A few years back, Boyd decided to restart its soccer team and was trying to fill one of the most important positions on the field - keeper. The Broncos decided to go with a kid who really didn’t know what he was doing yet.
Grissom can sit back and laugh about how nervous he was then because by the time he left Boyd, he was the best keeper in the entire TSIAA.
And his celebration of Boyd goals - a cartwheel toward midfield - became a trademark of the Broncos’ success over the last few years.
Football may have been his first love, and basketball was his bread and butter when he enrolled at Boyd, but something tells me his legacy as a Bronco will be the cartwheels - and all the goals he stopped by being a great keeper.
Christian Munoz, WCHS football/basketball
You heard it here first: Munoz is going to be a breakout player for the Pioneers in 2026 if he can stay healthy.
The only thing that stopped him from already being on everybody’s radar was a shoulder injury suffered in preseason last year that knocked him out for the entire football season.
Now back healthy, I think he’s going to turn heads.
He’s as feisty a competitor as I’ve seen in Warren County and will be an immediate fan favorite.
I’ve told this story before, so forgive me for repeating myself, but Munoz won me over for life while he was a point guard at Eastside.
I used to do an all-county basketball team (yes, we’ll be bringing that back on the WC Way, along with weekly county players of the week for elementary and county basketball), and he always kept up with who was excelling.
After he didn’t make it one year, he saw me out and said, “I’ll be on your list next time.”
Well, here you go, Christian. You finally made my list. Now go make Best Athlete for 2026-27.
