ALBUQUERQUE ACADEMY’S ANNA HASTINGS NAMED GATORADE NEW MEXICO GIRLS TRACK AND FIELD PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Gatorade today announced Anna Hastings of Albuquerque Academy is the 2025-26 Gatorade New Mexico Girls Track and Field Player of the Year.
Gatorade Player of the Year is the top honor in high school sports, celebrating the nation’s best high school athletes for their excellence in sport, academics and community. The award recognizes Hastings as New Mexico’s best high school girls track and field athlete and she joins an elite legacy that spans professional athletes and coaches to CEOs, such as Sanya Richards (2001-02, St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Florida), Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (2015-16 & 2016-17, Union Catholic Regional High School, New Jersey) and Jane Hedengren (2024-25, Timpview High School, Utah).
The 5-foot-6 senior swept all of her events—the 800-, 1600- and 3200-meter runs—at the Class 4A state meet this past season, leading the Chargers to the team title. Hastings clocked a personal-best in the 800 at the state meet with her time of 2:14.64. Earlier in the season, she notched PRs of 4:56.62 in the 1600 and 10:29.20 in the 3200.
Hastings has volunteered locally as a director at Effects, a nonprofit that helps teach science education at underfunded elementary schools in Albuquerque. She has also donated her time as a peer math tutor and was a counselor at the Field Institute of Taos. “Hastings demonstrated excellent middle-distance and distance range at the state meet and PR’d in her top three events,” said Rich Gonzalez, PrepCalTrack editor. “Those performances are made more impressive by the fact they came at altitude.”
Hastings has maintained a weighted 4.54 GPA in the classroom. She will compete at Brown University this fall.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one state winner from each of the 50 states and Washington D.C., in 12 different sports: football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, boys and girls soccer, and boys and girls track & field. In total, 610 high school athletes are honored each year. From the pool of state winners, one national winner is selected in each of the 12 sports. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the winners in each sport.
