In its 26^th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN RISE, today announced Bria Goss of Ben Davis High School as its 2010-11 Gatorade Indiana Girls Basketball Player of the Year.  Goss is the third Gatorade Indiana Girls Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Ben Davis 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 court, distinguishes Goss as Indiana’s best high school girls basketball player.  Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year award announced in March, Goss joins an elite alumni association of past state girls basketball award-winners, including Candace Parker (2001-02, Naperville Central HS, Ill.), Diana Taurasi (1998-99 & 1999-00, Don Antonio Lugo HS, Calif.), Maya Moore (2005-06 Collins Hill HS, Ga.), Rashanda McCants (2004-05, Asheville HS, N.C.), Shyra Ely (1999-00, Ben Davis HS, Ind.) and Lisa Leslie (1988-89, Morningside HS, Calif.)

The 5-foot-10 senior guard averaged 21.6 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.6 steals and 3.2 assists per game this past season, leading the Giants (24-1) to the Class 4A state tournament round of 16. A 2011 McDonald’s All-American Game selection, Goss shot 53.7 percent from the floor and 81.4 percent from the free throw line for Ben Davis, which won 81 straight games and back-to-back Class 4A state titles before losing in this year’s state tournament. As a sophomore, Goss hit the game-winning shot in the 2009 state title game. She concluded her prep basketball career with 1,604 points.

Goss has maintained a 3.33 GPA in the classroom. She has volunteered locally with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as a youth basketball coach and as part of multiple community service initiatives in association with her church youth group.

“I can’t imagine a kid being any better than Bria Goss,” said Curt Benge, head coach of rival Plainfield High. “She’s a very gifted athlete, a gifted basketball player. She made her whole team better. She’s so intelligent. What she’s improved on is her outside shooting. When she was younger you backed off her. You couldn’t play her that way the last year and a half.”

Goss has signed a National Letter of Intent to play basketball on scholarship at the University of Kentucky 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 ESPN RISE and the Gatorade high school sports leadership team, 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.

Goss joins recent Gatorade Indiana Girls Basketball Players of the Year Courtney Moses (2009-10, Oak Hill) and Skylar Diggins (2007-08 & 2008-09, Washington) among the state’s list of former award winners.

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