GPS trio will play D-I sports
Larkin Brown and Allison Smith sign letters for rowing; Anna Croxall extends her soccer career
Girls Preparatory School had an assembly Wednesday in which seniors Larkin Brown, Anna Croxall and Allison Smith signed national letters of intent to continue their athletic careers in NCAA Division I.
Brown and Smith signed to row for Virginia and Dartmouth, respectively, and Croxall signed for soccer at Tennessee Tech.
Croxall was a center midfielder for the GPS team that just won the TSSAA Division II-AA state soccer championship and went 26-75 in her varsity career — with a region record of 11-2-3. She had four goals and two assists this season. She also runs track, is an honor student and serves as a GPS Ambassador and volunteer tutor.
“Anna is the epitome of what it means to be a Bruiser,” soccer coach Patrick Winecoff said in a GPS release. “No one works harder or is more invested in the success of the team than she is. It is evident in the training environment or during a match that she is a selfless player who celebrates the team.”
Brown and Smith have the two fastest 2000-meter times, 7:16.5 and 7:19, in GPS crew history, and have won the last two Susan BeVille Forker Awards for exhibiting the “same leadership and determination” as the Bruisers’ star rower from the class of 2001. They were in the fourth-place boat, out of 91, in the women’s youth four at the recent Head of the Hooch regatta and competed also this fall in the famed Head of the Charles in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Brown took part in the 2018 US Rowing club nationals and was on the eight-plus United States under-19 crew that finished second in the World Rowing Junior Championships in August in the Czech Republic.
“Last year, Larkin set a goal of being the fastest athlete to come through the program, and she accomplished just that,” GPS rowing coach David Hall said in the release. “Then her goal became to make it to Selection Camp to compete for a seat at the (World Juniors). After the invite to Selection Camp, Larkin found herself sitting in the United States women’s U19 eightplus at Worlds … where she raced to a silver-medal finish, proving there is nothing Larkin cannot do if she sets her mind to it.”
Smith, Hall said of the president of the GPS student council, “personifies what it means to lead by example. She trains harder than her competition, often twice per day, and her results show for it. Her sheer hard work and determination to reach her goals are unmatched by anyone on the team. With a busy academic and service schedule, Allison manages her time better than many adults.”
Also in the GPS release, Dartmouth assistant coach Kelly Harris gushed about getting Smith.
“We’re thrilled about Allison’s decision to join us at Dartmouth next fall,” Harris said. “From the moment we met Allison and her parents last May, we knew she was a terrific young woman with a wealth of potential. She will definitely have an immediate impact on the speed of our program, and we are excited to help her develop technically and physically over the course of her four years as a member of the Big Green.”