Turns out, Natalie Norris was right all along.
For the better part of the past three years, Norris, the girls’ basketball coach at Camden High, preached to anyone within the sound of her voice that Lady Bulldog forward Joyce Edwards was best female high school player in the country. Wednesday, in a secret, star-studded ceremony at CHS, Gatorade made Norris’ claim official as it named Edwards as its Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year for the 2023-24 season.
For the first time in the history of the Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year, the honor went to a student-athlete from South Carolina.
The 6-foot-2 Edwards, who signed to continue her academic and athletic endeavors with South Carolina in November, was presented with the glass and brass Gatorade trophy by current Dallas Wings forward and two-time WNBA All-Star Satou Sabally.
The latest -- and most prestigious -- honor can be piled on to the long list of accolades and awards which have come Edwards’ way over her six-year varsity career (see accompanying box).
Thinking she was entering the Camden High Wellness Center to work on her shooting with her father, Charlie, for her playing in three postseason All-American games, Joyce Edwards was, instead, greeted by Sabally as she walked into the gym. With a bank of still and television cameras filming the moment, Edwards gasped, put her hands over her mouth in amazement and doubled over. Moments later, family members and teammates, filed out of the adjoining trainers’ room to join the celebration.
“I was shocked,” the 6-foot-2 senior forward said. “At first, I was like, ‘Why are all these people here?’
“I came into shoot; I’ve been shooting every day this week for the McDonald’s All-American Game (in Houston today.) I looked saw the Gatorade National Player of the Year award. I had seen it before on Instagram. That was extremely shocking. It left me speechless. Amazing. I don’t even have words for it.”
Edwards, the three-time South Carolina AAA girls’ basketball player of the year, was named a finalist for the Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year honor two weeks ago. She beat out Kennedy Smith, a Southern Cal signee, and Jaloni Cambridge, who will play her college ball at Ohio State University. All three finalists were tabbed as Gatorade Girls Basketball Player of the Year in their home states which, for Smith and Cambridge, were California and Florida, respectively.
To be tabbed the nation’s best high school player, after Gatorade honored Edwards with its honor for the Palmetto State for the second straight year, was something which she never expected or played for whenever she took the floor.
“I’m just grateful,” she said while addressing a gathered throng of media personnel. “As some of you may know, I don’t necessarily play for awards, but the fact that people see my hard work just means a lot to me.
“Getting this award out of all the girls’ basketball players in the nation ... it just says something to me that my hard work has been paying off. It’s fulfilling to me as a person.”
The leading scorer in the history of Camden basketball -- boys and girls -- with 3,952 points in her six-year Lady Bulldogs career in which she earned AAA All-State honors after each season, Edwards helped lead Camden to its second consecutive AAA state title in March with a 44-22 win over Wren, which the Lady Dogs defeated for the crown for the second time in as many seasons. In this year’s title pairing played at the Florence Center, Edwards scored 27 points while grabbing 20 rebounds.
As a senior, Edwards averaged 31.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, 4.5 steals and 4.0 assists per game while being named as MaxPreps South Carolina Girls Player of the Year. Following her junior academic year, MaxPreps named Edwards as its National Female Athlete of the Year, an honor also accorded to her by USA Today.
The Gatorade National Girls Player of the Year award also takes into account academics and community involvement. Edwards sparkles in those two areas and carries a 5.1 grade point average.
A more complete, in-depth interview will be included in the Tuesday's edition of the Chronicle-Independent.
