NEW ORLEANS (September 10, 2024) – Tanner Schexnaydre, who keyed the Eastbank Little League's victory at the Little League Intermediate World Series, has been selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl Athlete of the Month for August. Athletes of the month have been selected by the New Orleans 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.
 
Allstate Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month
 
In two August games at the Little League Intermediate World Series, Schexnaydre posted two impressive victories on the mound as Eastbank Little League captured the Intermediate 50/70 World Series championship (11-13 year-olds). Against Livermore, Calif., in his first outing, he allowed just two unearned runs on three hits while striking out eight in a seven-inning complete game victory. He threw a total of 73 pitches in his seven innings and 61 of those pitches were strikes. In the U.S. championship game against Livermore again, he delivered another complete game victory, allowing one unearned run and striking out 11. He threw 74 pitches with 58 being strikes and retired the last 15 batters in a row and 18 of the last 19 in the game as his team won the U.S. championship. Schexnaydre also batted .333 in the World Series.
 
The baseball star won the monthly honor over four other standout local athletes, including one of his own teammates:
 

• Bernard Cheruiyot, a freshman for the Tulane cross country team, made his debut for the Green Wave and posted a time of 14:00.05 to win the five-kilometer Battle of New Orleans cross country meet in Lake Oaks Park. The Kenya product was the top runner of 85 competitors in the meet as Tulane had the top six finishers overall. The meet also included UNO, Louisiana, Loyola, Nicholls State, Southeastern, Xavier, Southern, Dillard and Lamar.
• Nine-year old James Hills, Jr., from Gretna may be the best athlete in his age group in the nation. A fourth grader at Good Shepherd Elementary School, he made a major splash with wins in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes at the National AAU Junior Olympics August 2nd and 3rd on the campus of North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, North Carolina. He posted a time of 26.76 seconds in the 200-meters to win that event by nine-hundredths of a second on Aug. 2. Then on Aug. 3, he recorded a time of 12.88 seconds in the 100-meters to win his semifinal heat easily before rolling to victory in the finals with a time of 12.96 seconds (second place was 13.22 seconds). Hills also plays football at Harrell Playground where he lines up at RB, WR and CB and is widely considered the best football player at this stage of his athletic career in the Greater New Orleans Metro area. He was the only athlete from the New Orleans area ages 8-18 to win any events at the competition in Greensboro this year. He runs for the SACS Track & Field Club which stands for "Saving A Child through Sports."
• Gwyneth Hughes, a fifth-year senior with the LSU cross country team, took second place of 38 runners at the McNeese Season Opener. A graduate of Fontainebleau High School, Hughes posted a two-mile time of 10:22.19 to pace 10 LSU runners in the top 11 finishers. The Tigers won the meet over McNeese State, Stephen F. Austin, Northwestern State, and Alcorn State.  The second-place finish was the best individual finish of her career.
• Jackson Cantrelle scored on a wild pitch with two outs in the top of the seventh inning as Eastbank Little League captured the Intermediate 50/70 World Series championship (11-13-year-olds) with an 8-7 victory over Seoul, South Korea, on August 4 in Livermore, California. Cantrelle led off the top of the seventh with a single and went to second on Baylen Millet's single. Both runners moved up on a double steal to put runners at second and third with no one out. Junhyuk Oh came on in relief and quickly got a pair of strikeouts, but his first pitch to Dom Johnson got away, allowing Cantrelle to come across with the game-winner. Cantrelle and Millet had two hits apiece to pace Eastbank's eight-hit attack. Cantrelle hit a team-best .556 in five games at the World Series. He attended Christian Brothers last year and is now a pre-freshman (eighth-grader) at Jesuit.

 
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.