In its 39th year of honoring the nation’s most elite high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Carson Pridie of Perry High School is the 2023-24 Gatorade Arizona Boys Soccer Player of the Year. Pridie is the second Gatorade Arizona Boys Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from Perry High School.

The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Pridie as Arizona’s best high school boys soccer player. From CEOs and coaches to star athletes, Gatorade Player of the Year winners showcase the power of sport, touting an all-star group of alumni that includes Lyle Yorks (1987-88, E.O. Smith High School, Conn.), Alecko Eskandarian (1999-00, Bergen Catholic High School, N.J.) and Ben Bender (2019-20, Calvert Hall College High School, Md.).

The 6-foot-3, 175-pound senior goalkeeper led the Pumas to an 18-4-2 record and a second-straight Conference 6A state championship this past season. Pridie conceded 18 goals and posted nine shutouts. The Conference 6A Player of the Year, Pridie notched 12 saves as Perry topped San Luis High School, 1-0, in a shootout in the state final. He concluded his prep soccer career with 20 shutouts.

Pridie has volunteered locally at a food bank and homeless shelter, and he has donated his time with Score For Success, a non-profit organization that supports underprivileged athletes. “Carson is technically sound and makes saves to keep his team in the game,” said TJ Hagen, head coach of Mesa High School. “In both games against us, he made several key saves that other keepers might not have made. And in the state final, he made saves that absolutely should have gone in the goal, giving his team the opportunity to win it on penalty kicks.”

Pridie has maintained a weighted 4.27 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a national letter of intent to play soccer on scholarship at Davidson College in North Carolina this fall.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. 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 state winners in each sport.

Pridie joins recent Gatorade Arizona Boys Soccer Players of the Year Caden Dosmann (2022-23, Perry High School), Luke Schaefer (2021-22, Hamilton High School), Charlie Cobb (2020-21, Brophy College Prep) and Francesco Montanile (2019-20, Brophy College Prep), among the state’s list of former award winners.

As part of Gatorade’s commitment to breaking down barriers in sport, every Player of the Year also receives a grant to donate to a social impact partner. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $4.9 million across more than 1,600 organizations.

To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate studentathletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.