Gavin Guidry of Barbe named Gatorade Louisiana Baseball Player of the Year

CHICAGO — In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Gavin Guidry of Barbe High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Louisiana Baseball Player of the Year. Guidry is the sixth Gatorade Louisiana Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from Barbe 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 Guidry as Louisiana’s best high school baseball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year award to be announced in June, Guidry joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo High School, Mich.), Jon Lester (2001-02, Bellarmine Preparatory School, Wash.), David Price (2003-04, Blackman High School, Tenn.), Clayton Kershaw (2005-06, Highland Park High School, Texas), Rick Porcello (2006-07, Seaton Hall Preparatory School, N.J.) and Kris Bryant (2009-10, Bonanza High School, Nev.).

The 6-foot-3, 180-pound senior shortstop and right-handed pitcher batted .422 with five home runs and 25 RBI, leading the Bucs to a 36-4 record and a berth in the Class 5A quarterfinals this past season. Guidry is the state’s No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2022 as ranked by Perfect Game and also a member of the 2021 USA Baseball 18U National Team. He compiled an 8-0 record on the mound this spring with a 0.16 ERA and 83 strikeouts against just 11 walks in 45 innings pitched.

Guidry has volunteered locally on behalf of an assisted living facility and in association with hurricane cleanup efforts in his community. “Gavin Guidry was one of the toughest players we’ve faced the past two years and we play in a very competitive district with a large number of great players,” said Avron Lewellyn, head coach at New Iberia High School. “He is hard-nosed and very talented. We had a lot of difficulty pitching to him because he can beat you in several different ways as a hitter and as a pitcher. He is one of the top arms in the state of Louisiana and helped Barbe win several big games throughout the year with his impressive arsenal.”

Guidry has maintained a 3.71 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball on scholarship at LSU 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.

Guidry joins recent Gatorade Louisiana Baseball Players of the Year Jack Walker (2020-21, Barbe High School), Brody Drost (2019-20, Barbe High School), Cade Doughty (2018-19, Denham Springs High School), and Cade Beloso (2017-18, John Curtis Christian School), among the state’s list of former award winners.

Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field. Through Gatorade’s “Play it Forward” platform, Guidry has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization of their choosing that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports. Guidry is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.

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 playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.