CHICAGO — In its 39th year of honoring the nation’s most elite high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Addie Siders of Sumrall High School is the 2023-24 Gatorade Mississippi Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Siders is the first Gatorade Mississippi Girls Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from Sumrall High School.
The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Siders as Mississippi’s best high school girls soccer player.
The 5-foot-7 junior defender and midfielder led the Bobcats to a 23-3-1 record and the Class 4A state championship this past season. Siders scored 20 goals and passed for 14 assists, tallying the game-winning overtime goal in Sumrall’s 2-1 win over West Lauderdale High in the state final. The Class 4A Tournament Most Valuable Player, she also scored the game-winner for Sumrall in the state semifinals.
A five-year starter, she concluded her junior year with 71 goals and 54 assists in her prep soccer career. The 2023 winner of the Sumrall Character Award, Siders has volunteered as part of multiple community service initiatives as a member of the BETA Club and the Auxiliary Crown Club. She has also donated her time at a camp for children with physical and intellectual challenges and as a youth soccer coach.
“We played Sumrall in the state semifinals and Addie scored the second goal for Sumrall, which ultimately was the deciding factor in the game,” said Colby Adam, head coach of Bay High School. “Outside of it being a very important goal, it was the most beautiful goal I witnessed throughout the entire season. She could not have hit it any better or put it in a better place. There was nothing that we could have done to prevent it, other than not let her shoot, at which we did our best.”
Siders has maintained an A average in the classroom. She has made a verbal commitment to play soccer on scholarship at the University of Southern Mississippi beginning in the fall of 2025.
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. Siders joins recent Gatorade Mississippi Girls Soccer Players of the Year Mary Frances Symmes (2022-23, Gulfport High School), Kate Smith (2021-22 & 2020-21, Gulfport High School) and Lucy Green (2019-20, West Lauderdale High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
