NEW ORLEANS (November 6, 2023) – Dedric Lastie, a junior running back from Riverside Academy, has been selected as the Greater New Orleans Amateur Athlete of the Month for October. Monthly award-winners are selected by the Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
 
Greater New Orleans Amateur Athletes of the Month
 
Lastie led Riverside to a 4-0 month of October by rushing 67 times for 944 yards (14.1 ypc) and 17 touchdowns. The junior running back closed October as the leading rusher in the New Orleans Metro area with 1,786 yards and 30 touchdowns while averaging an impressive 10.8 yards per carry. He opened the month (Oct. 6) with a 338-yard, 4-TD performance (on just 18 carries) in a 55-14 road victory over St. Martin's Episcopal and its own star running back Harlem Berry, the September Athlete of the Month for New Orleans. Lastie, who is 5-4, 130 pounds, had 10 runs of 10 yards or more, including TD dashes of 68, 48, and 38 yards.
 
"I knew it was going to be a special night from the first run," Lastie told Louisiana vs. All Y'all after his big performance. "I knew it by how the offensive line was blocking, the receivers were out wide blocking. I just knew it was going to be a good game from the start."
 
Lastie also added 241 yards and five touchdowns (on 15 carries) in an October 27 win over Varnado and 248 yards in an Oct. 19 win over L.B. Landry. The 9-1 Rebels closed their regular season on Friday night with a 63-0 win over Crescent City Christian to earn the No. 5 seed in the District IV state playoffs.
 
"Dedric has really stepped up for us," head coach Lee Roussel told CrescentCitySports.com. "He's a very smart football player. He's small in stature but he's very tough and can run inside the tackles. He can make explosive runs. He's a real good kid. He's a good receiver as well. He's just a good player."
 
The junior star was selected for the honor over three other local stars:

• Tulane running back Makhi Hughes was the driving force behind the No. 21 Green Wave posting a 3-0 record in October. The redshirt freshman rushed 72 times for 408 yards and two touchdowns and caught three passes for 25 yards. In a critical American Athletic Conference win over Memphis on Oct. 13, the Birmingham product had 26 carries for 133 yards and a touchdown in a 31-21 decision. He followed that with a 122-yard performance in a 35-28 win over North Texas on Oct. 21. The 5-11, 205-pounder closed the month with 153 rushing yards in a victory over Rice.
• Gemma Rebollo won the American Athletic Conference Cross Country Championship to help Tulane capture the first cross country conference title in school history. It was the Green Wave's first women's cross country individual conference championship since 2000. The junior from Spain posted a time of 20:39.2 in the six-kilometer race. In her only other October competition, Rebollo set the Tulane school record for the 6K with a time of 19:58.3 to finish 12th at Texas A&M's Arturo Barrios Invitational on Oct. 13.
• Luci Schroeder scored the only goal in an Oct. 28 victory at Louisiana Christian as Xavier University of Louisiana clinched the Red River Athletic Conference women's soccer regular-season championship and an automatic bid to NAIA nationals. A junior midfielder from Samtens, Germany, Schroeder had two winning goals during the Gold Nuggets' 7-1 October; the other also occurred on the road in a 2-1 victory at Our Lady of the Lake. She finished the month with five goals and a team-high seven assists. XULA, in its first season of varsity soccer, was picked 11th out of 14 teams in the Red River preseason coaches poll. The team is 12-4 overall after a 2-1 opening-round victory in the RRAC tournament in which Schroeder scored the first goal.

The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee has been selecting an Amateur Athlete of the Month each month since 1957. The athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region in order to be eligible.
 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 103 Hall of Fame players, 52 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 89-year history. The 90th Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Semifinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2024. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting nearly $2.4 billion into the local economy in the last decade.