She’s already the Class LL champion, State Open champion and New England champion, and on Thursday, Glastonbury’s Brooke Strauss captured the Gatorade Connecticut Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award.
The 5-foot-5 senior won the Class LL state meet this past season with a time of 18:13, breaking the tape 22 seconds ahead of her next-closest competitor and leading the Guardians to second place as a team. Strauss went unbeaten against in-state opponents in 2024. She also took 22nd at Foot Locker Nationals and finished third at the Foot Locker Northeast Regional, matching her personal-best with a time of 17:41.50 to earn First Team All-Region honors. She broke the tape at the 89th New England XC Championships, winning with a time of 17:46.00.
The decorated cross country athlete maintained an A average in the classroom, and will run at UConn in the fall.
She’s heading to UConn next year, but first she wanted to win another State Open title
“She was so dominant in every Connecticut race she ran this season,” Shannon Siragusa, head coach at Simsbury High School, said in a release. “Brooke ran with such confidence and intelligence. She controlled every meet—usually starting with the field and then making a move over the last third of the race and no one could match it. It was a joy to watch her compete.”
Strauss is also active in the community, volunteering locally with Camp Sunrise, a special needs camp for children.
She joins recent Gatorade Connecticut Girls Cross Country Players of the Year Katherine Bohlke (2023-24, Newington High School), Katie Marchand (2022-23, Trumbull High School), Rachel St. Germain (2021-22, Somers High School) and Kate Wiser (2020-21, Pomperaug High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states across 12 different high school sports – 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.