Photo by Roma Pics for the LHSAA.
The St. Scholastica soccer team was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Girls’ Prep Team of the Year for 2018-19. The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects Amateur Athletes of the Month and each year’s Hall of Fame class.
St. Scholastica senior Isabella Pflug’s stoppage-time goal lifted the Doves to a 2-1 victory over Northshore to capture their second straight Allstate Sugar Bowl/LHSAA Division I state championship. The victory capped an unbeaten season (19-0-3) in which SSA scored 81 total goals while only allowing six goals while competing in the state’s premier soccer district. In the first three rounds of the playoffs, the Doves outscored Sulphur, St. Joseph and Mandeville by a combined score of 14-1. Goalkeeper Elizabeth Kalmbach was recognized as one of the top local goalies in many years after allowing just four regular-season scores while forward Sydney Vincens, an Alabama signee, scored 19 goals.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the girls and this team,” head coach Matt Jacques told The Advocate. “Everyone played well, and we were fortunate enough to come away with the victory.”
The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top amateur athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month – the honors enter their 64th year in 2020. To be eligible, an athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region.
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 96 Hall of Fame players, 50 Hall of Fame coaches and 18 Heisman Trophy winners in its 86-year history. The 87th Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Semifinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2021. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1.6 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors over 100,000 student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.7 billion into the local economy in the last decade.
-www.AllstateSugarBowl.org-
