NEW ORLEANS (June 5, 2024) – Germain Smith-Mata, a dominant sprinter from Warren Easton High School, has been selected as the Greater New Orleans Amateur Athlete of the Month for May. Monthly athletes of the month have been selected by the Allstate Sugar Bowl Sports Awards Committee 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. Smith-Mata is the first Warren Easton athlete to win the honor since football star Ashaad Clayton in November of 2018.
 
Greater New Orleans Amateur Athletes of the Month
 
Smith-Mata, a senior at Warren Easton was the star of the LHSAA Class 4A Outdoor Track & Field Championship at Bernie Moore Stadium in Baton Rouge. The sprinter won three events and added a silver medal in another – all on the same day – to lead Warren Easton to a second-place team finish. In the 100-meter dash, he recorded a time of 10.13 seconds to break the Louisiana state championship composite record of 10.20 set in 1980.
 
"I knew I could do it," Smith-Mata said about the 100-meter record. "It was just about putting the race together at the right time."
 
He also posted a time of 21.24 seconds to win the 200-meter dash and added a 47.70 second time in the 400 to sweep the sprint events. He also anchored the Warren Easton 4x400-meter relay team which finished second at 3:21.32, just five hundredths of a second from winning. He will compete in college for the University of Houston.
 
Smith-Mata won the monthly honor over a crowded field that included eight other outstanding local athletes.

• In two postseason starts on the mound for the Delgado baseball team, Luke Barbier combined for 17 innings pitched, striking out 14, walking three, and allowing only one run and ten hits. On May 2, he pitched a complete game, 9 inning, two hit shutout against Baton Rouge Community College, facing four batters above the minimum and retiring fifteen straight batters between the fourth and eighth inning, walking two and striking out eight to open Delgado's Region XXIII appearance. His second outing of the month came on May 9 against Shelton State College at the NJCAA South District Championship in Oxford, Ala. Barbier is a Southeastern Louisiana commit.
   
• With two strikes and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Tulane's Jackson Linn drilled a 430-foot solo home run to left centerfield to lift the third-seeded Green Wave to an 11-10 victory over fourth-seeded Wichita State in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) Championship game in Clearwater, Fla. The win sends Tulane to the NCAA Baseball Championship for the second straight year. It was the second home run of the game for the junior from Boston who was named the tournament's most outstanding player after hitting .400 (6-for-15) with four home runs, seven runs scored and nine RBI in the four tournament games. He had gone 2-for-4 with a home run and three RBI to key the Wave's win over Florida Atlantic which put them into the championship game. For the month of May, Linn was 16-for-51 (.313) with a .901 slugging percentage, 14 runs and 16 RBI. He entered the month with seven home runs on the season but hit nine homers in a 12-game span during May to finish the season with a team-high 16. Tulane won back-to-back conference tournament titles for the first time since 1998-99.
   
• Marshall Louque pitched a five-hit shutout and belted a three-run homer in the first inning to carry top-seeded Lutcher baseball to a 5-0 victory over defending state champion Iowa in the LHSAA Division II nonselect state semifinals on May 8. The LSU baseball commitment and Little League World Series hero from five years ago came to bat in the first inning after Brock Louque singled and Caleb Hastings drew a walk. The home run cleared the fence in left-center field. Lutcher had good reason to feel comfortable from that point forward because "it's hard to score three runs on Marshall," Lutcher coach Ryan Jensen said. "He has that kind of stuff. Or if you get runners on (base), he bears down, so you feel really confident with that advantage." Louque, who finished with eight strikeouts, one walk and a hit batter, struck out the final three batters after Tyler Lavergne and Reed Dupre started the inning with a pair of singles. In that state championship game, he added two-run triple to lift the Bulldogs to a 4-0 victory over North Vermillion.
   
• A senior at Louise McGehee, Kali Magana captured the LHSAA Outdoor Track & Field Class 1A state championships in three events – the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter dashes. She posted a time of 54.58 seconds in the 400-meter dash to set a new Class 1A record (breaking a record that had held since 1997). It was the third fastest 400-meter time of the meet, regardless of class. In the 100, she notched a time of 12.12 seconds, easily out-pacing the second place time of 12.48. In the 200, she posted a 24.78 second time. Magana, who has committed to run at the University of Houston, will represent Belize in international competition this summer.
   
• A junior with the Nicholls State baseball team and a graduate of Holy Cross High School, Nico Saltaformaggio was twice named Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week in May, earning the honor in consecutive weeks May 6 and May 13. Saltaformaggio earned Southland Conference Reliever of the Year honors and made the first team All-Southland Conference squad. For the month, he posted a 6-2 record with one save, pitching the Colonels to the Southland Conference Tournament championship in Hammond and to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. He recorded 24 strikeouts in 26.2 innings pitched.
   
• Jesuit senior long distance runner Michael Vocke captured his fourth state title in the 1,600-meter event in as many years. This time the four-time state champion set a record for the event, 4 minutes, 12:33 seconds. The 2021-22 Louisiana Gatorade Cross Country Runner of the Year is headed to LSU to continue his college track career.
   
• A sophomore for the Xavier University of Louisiana women's tennis team, McKenna Wheatley went 3-0 in singles matches – all in straight sets – at NAIA nationals at Mobile, Ala.  She scored the Gold Nuggets' only point of the semifinals when she won 6-2, 6-1 against 16th-ranked Angel Carney of Georgia Gwinnett, the eventual team champion. She was 1-1 in doubles with one unfinished match, which was tied at 5. Wheatley won in doubles and singles in the quarterfinals against fifth-ranked Middle Georgia to help Xavier earn its school-record 23rd dual-match victory of the season. She finished the season 20-5 in singles and 28-6 in doubles. It's the second straight year that Wheatley led Xavier with 48 total victories. In the final ITA NAIA computer rankings, Wheatley was 31st in singles and fifth in doubles with Mbali Langa. The Madison, Miss., product is the niece of 1996 Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame inductee Donald "Slick" Watts, who starred in basketball at Xavier and went on to play in the NBA. Wheatley is a biology/pre-medical major with a Xavier cumulative GPA of 3.40.

 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 107 Hall of Fame players, 52 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 90-year history. The 91st Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Quarterfinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2025. 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 over $2.5 billion into the local economy in the last decade.