CHICAGO—In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Mary Lundregan of St. Joseph High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Connecticut Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Lundregan is the fifth Gatorade Connecticut Girls Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from St. Joseph 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 field, distinguishes Lundregan as Connecticut’s best high school girls soccer player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year award to be announced in June, Lundregan joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Alexi Lalas (1987-88, Cranbrook High School, Mich.), Steve Cherundolo (1996-97, Mt. Carmel High School, Calif.), Abby Wambach (1997-98, Our Lady of Mercy School of Young Women, N.Y.), Heather O’Reilly (2001-02 & 2002-03, East Brunswick High School, N.J.), Matt Besler (2004-05, Blue Valley West High School, Kans.), Jack Harrison (2013-14, Berkshire High School, Mass.) and Mallory Pugh (2014-15, Mountain Vista High School, Colo.).
The 5-foot-4 senior midfielder led the Cadets to a 21-1-1 record and the Class L state championship this past season. Lundregan scored 14 goals and passed for 15 assists, including one helper in St. Joseph’s 2-0 win over Simsbury High in the state title game. A two-time United Soccer Coaches High School All-American selection, Lundregan is a three-year First Team All-State honoree. She concluded her prep soccer career with 43 goals and 52 assists.
Lundregan is the president of the Writing Center in St. Joseph’s Student Academic Center. She has volunteered locally on multiple community service initiatives through her school. “Mary had an amazing season,” said Ryan Perkins, head coach of Westhill High. “She scored goals, she controlled play and was the focal point of their team which probably allowed some of the other St. Joe’s players to stand out more since she was constantly double-marked.”
Lundregan has maintained an A average in the classroom. She has made a verbal commitment to attend Dartmouth College, where she will play soccer, beginning 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.
Lundregan joins recent Gatorade Connecticut Girls Soccer Players of the Year Maddie Fried (2020-21, St. Joseph High School), Chloe Landers (2019-20, Glastonbury High School), Meadow Mancini (2018-19, Watertown High School), and Lauren Hinton (2017-18, Loomis Chaffee 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, Lundregan 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. Lundregan is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $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 us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
