Submitted Photo Brynn Hanson runs during the 2023 NDHSAA Cross Country Class B State Championships. She captured a third consecutive state title at the event, and this week, she was named the 2023 Gatorade North Dakota Girls Cross Country Player of the Year.

Brynn Hanson of Des Lacs-Burlington High School is the 2023-24 Gatorade North Dakota Girls Cross Country Player of the Year. Hanson is the first recipient to be chosen from Des Lacs-Burlington High School. The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Hanson as North Dakota’s best high school girls cross country player.

The 5-foot-8 sophomore won her third straight Class B state meet this past season with a time of 19:42.5, breaking the tape seven seconds ahead of her next-closest competitor. Hanson won six of the seven races she entered this fall, including a victory in the competitive ND/MN/SD/Canada Border Battle. A First Team All-State selection as a member of the Minot High co-op varsity girls hockey team, she is also a four-time state champion with the Des Lacs-Burlington High track and field team.

A member of the Future Farmers of America, Hanson received the silver medal in a national FFA competition in the nursery/landscape division. She is a member of her school’s student council and has volunteered locally as part of multiple community service initiatives through her church.

“Brynn is absolutely awesome,” said Jon Jahner, head coach of Bowman High School. “She’s a great competitor. We have watched her compete in small meets, big meets and championship meets, and all of those can be their own beast. What makes her special is that she will perform in any of those arenas, and the larger the stakes, the more dialed in she is.”

Hanson has maintained a 4.0 GPA in the classroom. She will begin her junior year of high school 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 leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport. Hanson joins recent Gatorade North Dakota Girls Cross Country Players of the Year Jaelyn Ogle (2022-23, Watford City High School), Eleni Lovgren (2021-22, Williston High School) and Meghan Ford (2020-21, 2019-20 and 2018-19 Jamestown High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.