Liberty's Tyler Wyatt is this season's Arizona Gatorade High School Player of the Year, announced Gatorade Thursday morning. 

Below is the press release Gatorade sent to the media.

 

CHICAGO (May 28, 2015) — In its 30^th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with USA TODAY High School Sports, today announced Tyler Wyatt of Liberty High School as its 2014-15 Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year.  Wyatt is the first Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from Liberty High School. 

 

The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Wyatt as Arizona’s best high school baseball player.  Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year, Wyatt joins an elite alumni association of past state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo HS, Mich.), Roy Halladay (1994-95, Arvada West HS, Colo.), David Price (2003-04, Blackman HS, Tenn.), Chipper Jones (1989-90, Bolles School, Fla.), Derek Lee (1992-93, El Camino HS, Calif.) and Jon Lester (2001-02, Bellarmine Prep, Wash.).

 

The 6-foot, 190-pound senior right-handed pitcher posted an 8-2 record with one save, a 1.21 ERA and 79 strikeouts against just 11 walks in 63.2 innings pitched this past season, leading the Lions (28-6) to the Division I state championship game. Also a shortstop, Wyatt batted .495 with eight home runs, 42 RBI and 45 runs-scored. A returning First Team All-State selection, he worked 32 walks and belted 23 extra-base hits, recording a .633 on-base percentage and a .967 slugging percentage in his final prep campaign.

 

Wyatt has maintained a 3.37 GPA in the classroom. Also a football standout, he has donated his time as a youth baseball and football instructor.

 

“We played him three times this year, and I can tell you without a doubt he is the best player in the state,” said Lance Billingsley, head coach of rival Mountain Ridge High. “He is a good kid with an intense fire in him. He is the team leader, and they have relied on him for everything.”

 

Wyatt has signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball on scholarship at Grand Canyon University 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 high school sports leadership team in partnership with USA TODAY High School Sports, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.

 

Wyatt joins recent Gatorade Arizona Baseball Players of the Year Tyler Frost (2013-14, Greenway High School), Riley Unroe (2012-13, Desert Ridge High School), Mitch Nay (2011-12, Hamilton High School), Kevin Cron (2010–11, Mountain Pointe High School), Taylor Kaczmarek (2009-10, Desert Ridge), Jake Barrett (2008–09, Desert Ridge), Jaff Decker (2007-08, Sunrise Mountain High School), and Tim Alderson (2006-07, Horizon High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.

 

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