In its 27th year of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN HS, today announced Warsaw Community High School junior Ashley Erba as its 2011-12 Gatorade Indiana Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year. Erba is the first Gatorade Indiana Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year to be chosen from Warsaw Community High School. 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 Erba as Indiana'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 this month. The 5-foot-2 Erba raced to the individual state championship this past season, clocking a meet-record time of 18:05.6 at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute. Erba also won her sectional, regional and semi-state championships, and finished first at the New Prairie Invitational, the New Haven Classic, the Warsaw Tiger Invitational, the Huntington North Invitational and the Baron Classic. Along with her athletic accomplishments, Erba has also maintained an 'A' average in the classroom. A member of the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter, she has volunteered locally on behalf of youth sports programs. And those feats off the course played a big role in her receiving the award. "It's a combination of sports, academics and what you do socially," Erba said. "You need teachers and others that aren't really into the running to nominate you." Those feats off the course also seem to be just as important to Erba. "It's a big thing for me be involved in other things and not just running," she said. "I want to be balanced and don't want to lean too far in one direction." And her coach, Scott Erba, also happens to be her father, has watched his daughter impress in all aspects of life, and now it's being recognized by others. "It's certainly something that's amazing," he said. 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 and field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by ESPN HS 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. Erba joins Gatorade Indiana Girls Cross Country Runners of the Year Waverly Neer (2010-11 & 2009-10, Culver Academies), Sarah Higgens (2008-09, Center Grove), and Alex Banfich (2007-08, Culver Academies) as athletes who have won the cross country award since its inception in 2007. "It's huge and something for the scrapbook," Scott Erba said.
