In its 26th year of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN RISE, has announced Keiki Carlos of Mid-Pacific Institute as its 2010-11 Gatorade Hawaii Softball Player of the Year. Carlos is the first Gatorade Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Mid-Pacific Institute.

"Congratulations to Keiki and the MPI Softball team," said Jo Ito, MPI Athletic Director. "I am so happy that Keiki was recognized with this prestigious award. She is a very deserving recipient of the player of the year award not only for her outstanding abilities as a softball player, but also for her success in the classroom and commitment to other demanding programs at Mid-Pacific Institute. She has carried our softball program for the past three years and it has been a pleasure to watch her develop as a player and a person. Her leadership on and off the field was a key component of the team's success this year. She put the team on her back during the most challenging times and she came through when it counted most. As a result, we defended the ILH Championship and won the first Softball State Championship in school history... an amazing feat. We are already excited about next school year's softball season and look forward to seeing Keiki lead the team through another successful year."

The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Carlos as Hawaii's best high school softball player. Carlos is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year award.

The 5-foot-5 junior pitcher led the Owls (17-4) to the Division I state championship this past season. Carlos posted a 17-3 record along with a 1.11 ERA, 130 strikeouts and a 0.78 WHIP. She also batted .365 with three home runs and 19 RBIs. The 2011 Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I State Tournament Most Valuable Player, Carlos was the winning pitcher in all three of Mid-Pac's state postseason tournament victories.

Carlos has maintained a 3.15 GPA in the classroom. A devoted parishioner of her church community, she is a member of the Spanish Club and has volunteered locally as a student ambassador on behalf of her school's Holomua Honor Society.

"Any success that we achieved this season was because Keiki Carlos was on the mound for us," said Mid-Pacific Institute Head Coach Willie Quinn. "The fact that our school's softball program did not experience any success until Carlos entered the program speaks for itself."

Carlos has verbally committed to play softball on scholarship at the University of Hawaii beginning in the fall of 2012.

In 1985, The Gatorade Company established an award honoring America's elite high school student-athletes. Now in its third decade, the Gatorade Player of the Year award has become one of the most prestigious accolades in high school sports. 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.