Leah Varisco, a star in four sports at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Female Athlete from the New Orleans area for 2025-26. The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month and each year’s New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame class.
Varisco may have had the busiest schedule of anybody in New Orleans – not just high school athletes. The Sacred Heart senior was a cross country and track standout in the fall and spring, and in the winter, she starred for BOTH the basketball and soccer teams. Amazingly, she was named the team MVP in all four sports in which she participated.
“(Varisco) has had a really good impact,” Sacred Heart basketball coach Courtney Ward said. “Being able to balance the multiple sports, she’s the definition of what Sacred Heart is. Being able to give girls the opportunity to do multiple things, balance it and excel academically. She encompasses all of those things.”
In basketball, she was the team’s starting point guard and averaged 13.5 points and six assists per game as she led her team to the No. 3 seed in the Division III playoffs where they reached the state semifinals. A two-time LSWA Class 3A all-state selection, she keyed the first-ever state title for Sacred Heart basketball in 2025 and is the only player in school history to score over 1,000 career points.
She also accounted for 45 percent of Sacred Heart soccer's points through goals scored or assists as it reached the Division III semifinals in 2026. She closed her soccer career by scoring her team’s only goal in a 2-1 semifinal loss to Parkview Baptist.
In cross country, she finished third at the LHSAA Division II state championship, posting a time of 19:08.9 over the three-mile course to lead Sacred Heart to a second-place team finish.
At the Class 3A LHSAA Outdoor Track Championships in May, Varisco earned third-place finishes in both the 1,600-meter run (5:25.63) and the 3,200-meter run (11:52.74) while helping her school collect third place in the 4x800 meter relay.
Varisco was also selected as the Outstanding Female Athlete in the Sugar Bowl’s fan vote for the annual awards.
The other finalists for New Orleans’ Outstanding Female Athlete honor were Avery Daigle (Mandeville Swimming), Grace Keene (Northshore Cross Country/Track), and Jade Neves (Scared Heart Golf). Daigle set two individual composite state records and keyed a relay composite state record as she won Most Outstanding Swimmer honors at the Division I state meet. Keene won the Division I cross country state title, indoor titles in the 800 and 1,600 (with a state record time), and then added composite records in the 800 and 1,600-meter runs at the outdoor championships. Neves dominated the LHSAA state golf championship, finishing 18 strokes ahead of her closest competition to win her third individual state title while helping Sacred Heart to its second consecutive championship.
The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee came together 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 and a variety of annual award winners. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the 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 athlete in the New Orleans area each month as well as a range of annual awards – the honors enter their 70th year in 2026.
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 29 national champions, 114 Hall of Fame players, 55 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 92-year history. The 93rd Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will serve as a College Football Playoff Semifinal, will be played on January 15, 2027. 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 $2.6 billion into the local economy in the last decade.
-www.AllstateSugarBowl.org-
