CHICAGO (June 29, 2021) — In its 36th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Griffin O’Ferrall of St. Christopher’s School as its 2020-21 Gatorade Virginia Baseball Player of the Year.

O’Ferrall is the first Gatorade Virginia Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from St. Christopher’s 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 O’Ferrall as Virginia’s best high school baseball player.

Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year award to be announced in July, O’Ferrall joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Derek Jeter (1991-92, Kalamazoo High School, Mich.), Jon Lester (2001-02, Bellarmine Preparatory School, Wash.), David Price (2003-04, Blackman High School, Tenn.), Clayton Kershaw (2005-06, Highland Park High School, Texas), Rick Porcello (2006-2007, Seaton Hall Preparatory School, N.J.) and Kris Bryant (2009-10, Bonanza High School, Nev.).

The 6-foot, 185-pound senior shortstop led the Saints to a 22-1 record and the Virginia Prep League championship this past season. The 2021 Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Baseball Co-Player of the Year, O’Ferrall posted a .449 batting average with five home runs, 47 runs scored, 26 RBI and an OPS of 1.434. He also stole 20 bases and struck out only three times in 97 plate appearances.

O’Ferrall has volunteered locally on behalf of The Healing Place, a long-term, peer-driven residential recovery program, and he assisted in relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey.

“Griffin O’Ferrall has the ability to control a baseball game like few others,” said St. Christopher’s School Head Coach Tony Szymendera. “He makes difficult plays seem easy and he puts immediate pressure on the defense when he’s on base. At the plate, he hits for average and power, to the point where most infielders take a step back when he’s in the box because the ball is coming at them hard every time.”

In the classroom, O’Ferrall has maintained a B average. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball on scholarship at the University of Virginia 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 works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.

O’Ferrall joins recent Gatorade Virginia Baseball Players of the Year Jay Woolfolk (2019-20, Benedictine College Prep), Nate Savino (2018-19, Potomac Falls High School), Cade Hungate (2017-18, Abingdon High School), and Andrew Abbott (2016-17, Halifax County High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.

Through Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” O’Ferrall has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of their choosing.

O’Ferrall is also eligible to submit a 30-second video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $2.7 million across 1,117 organizations.

Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.

*** To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student-athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade. ***