Sheridan’s Addie Pendergast Selected the Gatorade Wyoming Girls Track and Field Player of the Year for 2023

The 2022-23 Gatorade Wyoming Girls Track and Field Player of the Year is Addie Pendergast from Sheridan High School.

Pendergast is the second winner in school history. She joins Kaylyn Doyle, who won this award in 2001-02.

In its 38th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company announced Pendergast’s award in a press release on Wednesday. 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 Pendergast as Wyoming’s best high school girls' track and field athlete.

The 5-6 junior swept the sprint races at the Class 4A track and field state championships in May. She won the 100 meters at 12.03 seconds, captured the 200 meters at 25.19 seconds, and set a new state record in the 400 meters at 54.62 seconds. Pendergast also took second place in the 300-meter hurdles at 44.13 seconds, just 0.16 seconds behind the winner. She helped the Broncs to a third-place in the team standings.

The Sheridan standout also won the 400 meters at the Wyoming Track Classic in Casper on April 28, 2023, at a time of 54.25 seconds, which ranked No. 33 in the nation among prep competitors in 2023. Pendergast recorded the fastest time in state history in the 200 meters at the Trojan Invitational in Casper on April 13, 2023, with a time of 23.58 seconds. Neither is officially a state record because according to the state track standards, a state record can only be set at the state track meet.

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Pendergast is now a finalist for the Gatorade National Girls Track and Field Player of the Year award that will be announced next month.

She has maintained a 4.0 GPA in the classroom and will begin her senior year this fall. An accomplished trumpet player and member of her school’s We The People team that captured a state championship and competed in the national finals in Washington D.C., Pendergast has volunteered locally helping to serve at-risk children in Sheridan County in association with its Food Group. She is traveling this summer to Copenhagen, Denmark, to do a study abroad program with an NGO named CIEE, focusing on Climate Science.

In the release from The Gatorade Company, it stated,

“Addie Pendergast returned to the Wyoming state meet this season after being unable to compete last year (following a transfer from Tongue River) and picked up where she left off as a freshman by winning three individual titles. She’s one of the most exciting all-around female athletes to compete in Wyoming during the past three decades.”

Pendergast joins Kate Brigham from Jackson (2021-22), Lauryn Love of Campbell County (2020-21), and Sydney Thorvaldson from Rawlins (2019-20 & 2018-19), as recent Gatorade Wyoming Girls Track and Field Player of the Year award winners.

Being a Gatorade Player of the Year means paying it forward for the next generation. Through Gatorade’s Play it Forward initiative, every Player of the Year receives a grant to give to one of Gatorade’s social impact partners, supporting Gatorade’s ambition to fuel the future of sport. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants has totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.

*Information from a press release by The Gatorade Company was used in this story.