Ada Clare Tempert named Gatorade Maryland Player of the Year

CHICAGO — In its 34th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Ada Clare Tempert of Mercy High School as its 2018-19 Gatorade Maryland Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Tempert is the first Gatorade Maryland Girls Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from Mercy 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 Tempert as Maryland’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, Tempert 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-3 senior forward scored 28 goals and passed for 10 assists this past season, leading the Magic (14-5) to the Independent Athletic Association of Maryland Class A state tournament semifinals. Tempert, who competed in the High School All-American Game, scored the game-winning goal in 13 of Mercy’s 14 victories. She concluded her prep soccer career with 80 goals and 40 assists.

Also a standout on the Mercy High girls lacrosse team and a five-sport athlete as a senior, Tempert has volunteered locally at a theater, as a camp counselor and as a youth soccer coach. “Ada has a great work rate and is very skillful,” said Giuliano Celenza, head coach of Gerstell Academy. “She makes a huge difference in a game. Everything went through Ada.”

Tempert has maintained a 3.49 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to play soccer on scholarship at Loyola 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.

Tempert joins recent Gatorade Maryland Girls Soccer Players of the Year Abbey Burdette (2017-18, Urbana High School), Cammie Murtha (2016-17, Walter Johnson High School), Kia Rankin (2015-16, McDonogh School), Bridgette Andrzejewski (2014-15, McDonogh School) and Imani Dorsey (2013-14, Our Lady of Good Counsel High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.

As a part of Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Tempert 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.