Gatorade has officially announced its female winner of their prestigious Athlete ("Player") of the Year award for the 2025 Track and Field season. Each year, a national winner is announced on the boys' and girls' sides, as well as a winner for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The boys' winner in Missouri, Nixa's Jackson Cantwell, was announced last week.
This year's winner is Cardinal Ritter's Kyndall Spain.
It was an incredible finish to her illustrious career that garnered her this award. The Cardinal Ritter senior and daughter of future MTCCCA Hall of Fame coach Tiffany Spain played a crucial role in the team's eighth straight trip to the awards podium and fifth straight trip in Class 5. She won the 100m Hurdles and 300m Hurdles and, after scratching the open 100 meter dash on Friday, was able to will her team to the podium with her anchor leg on the fourth place 4x400m Relay team with a 55.10 split, the exact place they needed to tie Blue Springs South for fourth in the team standings.
Spain's 13.37 performance into a slight headwind (-0.5 m/s) in the 100 meter hurdles was a Class 5 State meet record and nearly missed Parkway Central's Skyye Lee's overall record of 13.34 (+1.0) from 2024. In the 300 meter hurdles, she ran 40.80, another Class 5 meet record, and the narrowest of margins (0.01 seconds) off the overall State record of 40.79 from Rock Bridge star Tyra Wilson in 2019. It was the fifth fastest mark in the entire country this season.
Over the last four years, Spain has been an incredible leader for her team, notching nine individual all-state honors, five individual State championships, and scoring significant points for three State championship teams. She has also earned four New Balance All-American honors, indoor and outdoor combined, including a runner-up finish in the 100m Hurdles and fourth place finish in the 400m Hurdles this year.
According to the Gatorade website, Spain has also excelled in the classroom with a 3.30 weighted GPA which, in addition to her athletic accolades, helped earn her admission to the University of South Carolina. She is a member of the St. Louis area Delta Sigma Theta sorority, has volunteered locally as a community services leader with Cardinal Ritter, and has volunteered as a youth hurdles coach at various summer track and field camps.
