By Rubin E. Grant
Reagan Riley could be described as a cool runner, and now she has a cool award.
At least that’s how Mountain Brook’s senior distance runner described being announced as the 2022-23 Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Player of the Year on Jan. 23.
“I’m just go grateful,” Riley said. “It’s such a prestigious and cool award. It’s an all-encompassing award, so it shows in a physical way all the hard work I’ve put in, and it shows what the team and coaches put into me. I definitely feel like it’s a team honor.”
Riley is the second Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Player of the Year to be chosen from Mountain Brook, joining Madeline Morgan (2007-08 and 2008-09).
“I think that’s so cool,” Riley said. “Mountain Brook is a school that likes to focus on legacy and history, so being the second one ever is what makes it so cool.”
The award recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field. Riley is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award, which will be announced later this month.
Riley raced to a second consecutive Class 6A individual state championship in the fall with a time of 17:57.30, leading the Spartans to their second consecutive team title. She also won the Southern Showcase and placed second at Nike Hole in the Wall Invitational in Washington. She finished ninth at the Garmin RunningLane National Championships.
“Reagan Riley reached high levels of national recognition with her victory at the Southern Showcase and a runner-up performance in Washington at the Nike Hole in the Wall Invitational, and (she) used those experiences to repeat as state champion,” said Erik Boal, an editor at DyeStat.com. “She punctuated her season with All-America honors for the second year in a row racing on home soil at the RunningLane National Championships in Huntsville.”
Riley has maintained a weighted 4.16 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a track scholarship with Notre Dame to run for the Fighting Irish in the fall.
She has served as co-president of the Justice Club, organized to raise awareness about human trafficking, and has volunteered locally at Alabama Game Changers, where she tutors autistic youth to make them feel comfortable in new environments. She is also the secretary of the Civitan Club, which plans service projects in her community.
Riley becomes the third consecutive Over the Mountain runner to be named the Gatorade Alabama Girls Cross Country Player of the Year, joining Vestavia Hills’ Crawford West (2021-2022 and 2020-2021) and Homewood’s Lainey Phelps (2019-2020).
