In its 34th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company announced Emily Speidel of Carmel High School as its 2018-19 Gatorade Indiana Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Speidel is the sixth Gatorade Indiana Girls Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from Carmel 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 Speidel as Indiana’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, Speidel joins an elite alumni association of past state soccer award-winners, 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 for 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-8 senior defender led the Greyhounds to a 20-1-2 record and the Class 3A state championship this past season. Speidel anchored a defense that allowed just five goals in 23 games, including only one in seven postseason matches. She also recorded six goals and six assists. A United Soccer Coaches All-American selection, Speidel played in the High School All-American Game. She missed three games in the middle of the year with an illness, including Carmel’s only loss.
A member of the Carmel High student government, Speidel has volunteered locally as a mentor to freshman students and as a youth soccer coach. “We played Carmel twice this past season and Emily was by far the best player on the field,” said Ramon Aguillon, head coach of Zionsville High. “Her ability to see the field and create opportunities for other players was outstanding. She had a huge impact on Carmel’s success.”
Speidel has maintained a weighted 3.64 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to play soccer on scholarship at Western Kentucky 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. From the 12 national winners, one male and one female athlete are each named Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year. In all, 607 athletes are honored each year.
Speidel joins recent Gatorade Indiana Girls Soccer Players of the Year Kristina Lynch (2017-18 & 2016-17, Penn High School), Alia Martin (2015-16, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School), Reilly Martin (2014-15, Brebeuf Jesuit) and Cassidy Blacha (2013-14, Avon High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.
As a part of Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Speidel also has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of her choosing. She is also eligible to submit an essay to win one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants for the organization of choice, which will be announced throughout the year.
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 www.Gatorade.com/POY, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow the program on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Gatorade.
Carmel’s Emily Speidel was named the 2018-19 Gatorade Indiana Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Speidel is the sixth Carmel girl to be chosen as Player of the Year, after leading the Greyhounds to a Class 3A state championship last fall. (Kent Graham/File photo)