Gatorade has announced Caroline Lyerlyof Greenville High School as the 2022-23 Gatorade South Carolina Girls Cross Country Player of the Year. Lyerly is the first Gatorade South Carolina Girls Cross Country Player of the Year to be chosen from Greenville High School.
The 5-foot-5 senior raced to the Class AAAA individual state championship this past season with a time of 18:31.67, leading the Red Raiders to the state title as a team. Lyerly also won the Class 4A regional meet as well as the Class 4A state qualifier, and finished second at the Bob Jenkins SCTCCCA Coaches Classic, the Starlight Run and the Ed Boehmke Greenville County Championships. She took fourth at the Nike Southeast Regional Championships in North Carolina, advancing to Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon for the first time in her career.
A sales associate and social media director at Fleet Feet Greenville, Lyerly has volunteered locally at the YMCA Judson Community Center and on behalf of Sharing On All Porches (SOAP), which collects donations and distributes them to charities in need. She is serving as senior class treasurer after previously being a junior marshal. A member of the National Honor Society and National Senior Beta Club, Lyerly is also vice president of the school's Future Health Professionals club, a student-led organization with the mission to promote career opportunities in the health industry and to enhance the delivery of quality health care.
Lyerly has maintained a 5.47 weighted GPA on a 4.00 scale in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to run on scholarship at the University of Tennessee this fall.
Lyerly joins recent Gatorade South Carolina Girls Cross Country Players of the Year Hannah Vroon (2021-22, James Island Charter High School), Katie Pou (2020-21, Nation Ford High School), and Ava Dobson (2019-20 & 2018-19, St. Joseph's Catholic School), among the state's list of former award winners.