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CROSS COUNTRY
Tangipahoa Area All-Parish Cross Country Team Released.
MVPs Randy Wills and Malia Cali headline list.
HAMMOND—Seniors Randy Wills and Malia Cali headlined the list of Tangipahoa Area All-Parish
Cross Country Team as each earned Most Valuable Honors. Will turned in a season best 15:56 time,
while Cali had a best time of 17:26.
Selected for the boys first team honors were Corbett Ourso, Scott Wheat.
On the ladies side the Lady Falcons swept the first team selections with five earning spots including
Carmen Brothers, Jordyn Becerra, Michelle Mobley, Elizabeth Gambel, and Laura Crother.
Katie Durham earned second team selection, while Rachel Greer and Seth Bleakly received Honorable Mention honors.
Cali selected Gatorade Louisiana Cross Country Runner of the Year!
Malia Cali makes it three in a row earning her third Gatorade Runner of the Year title.
HAMMOND—In its 25th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The
Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN RISE, today announced Malia Cali of St. Thomas
Aquinas High School as its 2009-10 Gatorade Louisiana Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the racecourse, distinguishes Cali as Louisiana’s best high school girls cross country runner. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year award to be announced in January, Cali joins an elite alumni association of past state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo HS, MI), Candace Parker (2001-02, Naperville Central HS, IL), Kevin Garnett (1992-93, Maudlin HS, SC), Abby Wambach (1997-98, Our Lady of Mercy, NY) and Mark Sanchez (2004-05, Mission Viejo HS, Calif.).
The state’s two-time returning Gatorade Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year, Cali won a fourth consecutive Class 2A state meet with a time of 18:17.4 this past season, leading the Falcons to second place as a team. Named the national girls winner of the 2009 Wendy’s High School Heisman last month, the 4-foot-9 senior distance runner captured 26th place at the Nike Cross Nationals South Regional championships in 20:17.5. A four-time All-State Cross Country Team selection as named by the Louisiana Track and Field Coaches Association, she also won the Mobile Cross Country Challenge of Champions, the Louisiana State University Cross Country Festival, the Gulf Coast Cross Country Stampede, the Mississippi College High School Invitational and the Walker High Shootout this past fall.
Also a soccer and track standout, Cali has maintained an A-plus average in the classroom. She has performed volunteer service on behalf of her church, Habitat for Humanity, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the National Junior Honor Society. Cali also co-founded a local campaign called Cleats for Kids to benefit young athletes from Honduras via equipment donations.
"She’s head and shoulders above everyone in the state," said Pete Boudreaux, head boys’ coach of Catholic High. "I’ve been watching her race for years. We’ve had some good runners, but she’s in another league; she’s even better than that. She leads from start to finish and blows everyone away. She’s just dominated Louisiana for years. There will be some good runners to come out here, but there’s nobody close to her. I mean no one. She’s in a league of her own."
Cali has verbally committed to an athletic scholarship at the University of North Carolina 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 ESPN RISE and the Gatorade high school sports leadership team, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
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