Southridge’s Alyssa Jones earns Gatorade Florida honor. Westminster Christian’s Matias commits
In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade announced Alyssa Jones of Miami Southridge Senior High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Florida Girls’ Track & Field Athlete of the Year.
Jones is the fifth Gatorade Florida Girls’ Track & Field Athlete of the Year to be chosen from Southridge.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Jones as Florida’s best high school girls’ track & field athlete.
Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Player of the Year award to be announced in July, Jones joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Lolo Jones (1997-98, Roosevelt High School, Iowa), Allyson Felix (2002-03, Los Angeles Baptist High School, California), Robert Griffin III (2006-07, Copperas Cove High School, Texas), Grant Fisher (2014-15 & 2013-14, Grand Blanc High School, Michigan) and Candace Hill (2014-15, Rockdale County High School, Georgia).
The 5-foot-10 senior jumper and sprinter won four individual state titles at the Class 3A state meet this past season, headlined by a state-record leap of 20 feet, 11.75 inches in the long jump and a personal-best clocking of 23.49 seconds in the 200-meter dash, leading the Spartans to second place as a team.
A three-time Gatorade Florida Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year, Jones produced three national Top 15 performances among prep girls competitors this spring, including a U.S. No. 1 in the long jump (21-2.5), a national No. 7 in the high jump (5-11.75) and the nation’s No. 14 clocking in the 200 (23.49). She also ranked No. 50 in the 100-meter dash (11.70).
An eight-time state champion, she collected four medals at June’s New Balance Nationals Outdoor, earning a gold and a silver in two relays—both of which produced 2022 national Top 15 prep times—while also grabbing a national title in the long jump along with a silver medal in the high jump. The three-time Miami Herald Track Athlete of the Year, she also owns an indoor national title in the long jump.
Jones has attained President’s Honor Roll status several times and has been recognized for her hard work, efforts and achievements at the Robert Morgan Educational Center Academic Awards Ceremony. A participant in her school’s Advanced Placement Capstone Seminar, she has served her community with more than 200 hours of volunteer service.
As a member of the National Honor Society, she has participated in reading sessions with preschool students, she helped initiate an annual Senior Prom event at a local nursing home and she assisted in launching an annual two-day leadership conference for 9th grade students.
“Alyssa Jones graduates as a highly decorated Florida track athlete, including a vice grip on the Gatorade award for three years running ,” said Erik Boal, an editor at Dyestat. “Her performance at NBNO gave her 22.5 individual points at the meet and a national championship in the long jump. Amidst an extremely talented field of candidates in the Sunshine State this year, she is a worthy Gatorade winner.”
Jones has maintained a 5.0 weighted GPA on a 4.0 scale in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at Stanford University this fall.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.
The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.
Three-time winner Jones joins recent Gatorade Florida Girls Track & Field Players of the Year Jan’Taijah Ford (2018-19, Northeast High School), and Cailtin Collier (2017-18, The Bolles School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field. Through Gatorade’s “Play it Forward” platform, Jones has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization of their choosing that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports.
Jones is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of 12 $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.
Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student-athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
Matias makes college commitment
Westminster Christian junior standout Emily Matias recently committed to play indoor volleyball and beach volleyball at NCAA Division I Coastal Carolina in Conway, South Carolina.
Matias, who will be a senior in the fall, had an outstanding junior year. She was awarded the All Dade Girls’ Volleyball, Beach Volleyball and Overall Female Athlete of the Year awards by the Miami Herald.
Matias led Westminster Christian to its third straight Class 3A title game in girls’ volleyball and helped the Warriors reach the state quarterfinals in beach volleyball.
She was the Miami Herald’s All-Dade Girls’ Volleyball Player of the Year for Classes 4A-2A and one half of the Miami-Dade County Beach Volleyball Duo of the Year, alongside younger sister Zoey.
Awards, honors, college signings
If you have local, state, national and/or team awards for your varsity student athletes, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
College signings, too.
New athletic directors, coaches
For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have new sports administration and/or coaching hires to announce, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
Submit summer sports results
For high school aged athletes in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have summer results, top performers and stats for this column, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
They will run in the newspaper and online. Photos accepted, too. No deadline. Send after the event, the next day or weekly. You will be alerted when it will appear in the newspaper and online.
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Roundup compiled by Jim Varsallone
jvarsallone@miamiherald.com
