Sugar Bowl

Becky Lambert was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Girls’ Prep Coach of the Year after leading Archbishop Hannan to its third straight softball state championship. The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects Amateur Athletes of the Month and each year’s Hall of Fame class.
 
Lambert directed Hannan, the No. 2 seed, to the LHSAA Division II Softball Championship with a 3-0 victory over top-seeded Haynes. After 10-0 and 9-4 wins in the first two rounds, the Hawks held off No. 3 Vandebilt Catholic, 3-2, in the semifinals. Junior pitcher Tristyn Baugh returned to the mound for the championship game and tossed a no-hitter to lead the Hawks to the title.
 
“I’m proud of these kids because we never got into our spots until the end of the season,” Lambert said after the championship. “They fought, and they did their jobs. We were battle-tested throughout the season. It paid off today.”
 
The Hawks (19-11) scored all of their runs in the third inning to upend the Yellowjackets (26-6) in a rematch of last year’s state championship game, also won by Hannan.
 
“We lost five players from last year’s team and we battled some key injuries, which we’ve done well to avoid in past years,” Lambert said. “These kids stayed together, they practiced hard, they got along. I give a lot of credit to them. They believed in themselves all year long. I thought the season may run out before everything came together, but the last couple of weeks, they gelled and everyone settled in. Then the playoffs hit, and this team flourishes in the playoffs.”
 
The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee has recognized outstanding high school coaches for the New Orleans area since 1962. This is the first time that Lambert has earned the honor, though her team was recognized as the Outstanding Girls’ Prep Team for New Orleans after winning the state championship in 2011.
 
The other finalists for Greater New Orleans Girls’ Prep Coach of the Year were Jessica Chatellier (Dominican Volleyball), Mark Dubuisson (Sacred Heart Volleyball) and Temeka Johnson (John Curtis Christian Basketball). Chatellier, who earned her 400th career coaching victory this year, led Dominican to its second straight state championship. Dubuisson led seventh-seeded Sacred Heart, whose roster included just one senior, to the Division IV state championship with a 3-1 victory over Ouachita Christian. Johnson earned her second straight title, in just her second year as head coach, with an impressive 67-47 victory over McKinley in the LHSAA Division I championship.
              
The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top amateur athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month - the honors enter their 66th year in 2022. To be eligible, an athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region.
 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 100 Hall of Fame players, 51 Hall of Fame coaches and 20 Heisman Trophy winners in its 88-year history. The 89th annual Sugar Bowl Classic is scheduled to be played on Saturday, December 31, 2022. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.2 billion into the local economy in the last decade.