Carrera wins a Wendy’s High School Heisman

Riverhead senior Carolyn Carrera — a three-sport athlete who plans to play lacrosse and soccer at Hofstra University — was honored this week as the winner of New York’s female Wendy’s High School Heisman Award.

The award is given each year to one male and female student in each state who demonstrates excellence in athletics, academics and community leadership. The 102 state winners are each entered into the national competition, where 12 students will be chosen as finalists and compete for a title on Dec. 13. The 12 finalists will be featured on ESPN and receive gold medals and $2,000 for their high school. The high school of each national winner receives a donation of $10,000.

Last month, Carrera was named one of 10 finalists for New York from a pool of 48,000 applicants. She was chosen along with John McCarthy of Corning-Painted Post West High School.

Carrera plays goalkeeper on the Riverhead soccer team in the fall. She also plays basketball in the winter and is a midfielder on the lacrosse team in the spring. She was an All-American in lacrosse last year.

Carrera has been equally successful in the classroom with a 98.75 unweighted average. She scored a 2040 on the SATs and is ranked third in her class out of 362 students. She is an honor roll student, member of the National Honor Society, the Latin Honor Society, Mentathletes and the Math Club.

She’s also president of her class and has been active working with student government to raise funds to help former classmate Michael Hubbard. At Hofstra, Carrera plans to major in engineering or pre-med.

In June, Carrera was named a co-winner of the News Review’s Athlete of the Year of the award for Riverhead.