CHICAGO (January 23, 2023) - In its 38th year of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Emma Bourg of Houma Christian School is the 2022-23 Gatorade Louisiana Girls Cross Country Player of the Year. Bourg is the first Gatorade Louisiana Girls Cross Country Player of the Year to be chosen from Houma Christian School.
"It's an honor to be selected as the Louisiana XC Player of the Year," Emma Bourg wrote in a social media post. "I'm so grateful for this The award, which recognizes not only outstaopportunity and everyone who has made this happen! And most importantly it has been the greatest privilege to be used by God, all of the glory goes to Him!"
Outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Bourg as Louisiana's best high school girls cross country player.
Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award to be announced in January, Bourg joins an elite alumni association of state award winners, including Natalie Cook (2021-22, Flower Mound High School, Flower Mound, Texas), Katelyn Tuohy (2019-20, North Rockland High School, Thiels, N.Y.), Megan Goethals (2009-10, Rochester High School, Rochester Hills, Mich.) and Jordan Hasay (2008-09, Mission College Preparatory Catholic High School, San Luis Obispo, Calif.).
The 5-foot-4 senior raced to the LHSAA Division IV state championship title this past season with a time of 17:57.9, leading the Warriors to a 10th-place finish as a team. Bourg also won a state regional title, along with Watson Cross Country Classic and St. Joseph's Academy Invitational among her seven overall victories. She improved by more than 90 seconds from 2021 competing at this year's Garmin RunningLane National Championships in Alabama.
A chapel leader for Monday Morning Worship at Houma Christian School, Bourg has volunteered locally in Junior Kids church at Bayou Blue Assembly of God and went on a two-week service-mission trip to Africa as part of Bush Ministries. She also created a junior ring-ceremony slideshow for the school's graduating class of 2023.
Bourg has maintained a 4.22 weighted GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to run on scholarship at the University of New Orleans 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.
Bourg joins recent Gatorade Louisiana Girls Cross Country Players of the Year Lily Garrett (2021-22, Ruston High School), Kelsey Major (2020-21, St. Mary's Dominican High School), Annie Fink (2019-20, Runnels School), and Mary Nusloch (2018-19, Academy of the Sacred Heart), among the state's list of former award winners.