Sydney McLaughlin, MacKenzie Gore win 2017 Gatorade Athlete of the Year awards

Video: Gatorade Athletes of the Year
Sydney McLaughlin and MacKenzie Gore honored Monday in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES — The fashion, star power and muscles were on center stage Tuesday night at the 15th annual Gatorade National Athlete of the Year ceremony in the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

But what stole the show were numbers — staggering digits of gaudy statistics, percentages and grade point averages from individual sports winners being honored.

The numbers got somewhat numbing until host Sage Steele threw out the most impressive figure that drew plenty of gasps.

"There are more than eight million high school athletes who participate every year," she said.

And Tuesday, 12 of the most accomplished — both on and off the field — were highlighted. Talk about the top of the food chain.

At the very top emerged Olympic track-and-field standout Sydney McLaughlin and MacKenzie Gore, announced as the overall female and male winners. During a lavish and fanciful 2.5-hour ceremony, McLaughlin became the first repeat winner of the prestigious honor, while Gore was a surprise winner — a  small-school, left-handed pitcher who became only the second baseball recipient.

Both were also surprised by the announcement and release of Gore and McLaughlin gracing the cover of the upcoming Sports Illustrated issue (see below).

Gore, the only senior on his team, led Whiteville (N.C.) to its third straight state title, then was picked as the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year before being chosen as the third overall pick in last month's MLB Draft by the San Diego Padres.

All of that occurred in less than three weeks. Then, the last week of June he inked a $6.7 million signing bonus. And now this.

When Timberwolves star center and 2014 Gatorade Athlete of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns announced Gore's name as the winner, the easy going, "ah-shucks" kid from North Carolina said he was more than surprised.

"There's so many great athletes here and great players," he said. "I didn't expect my name to be called."

Asked about the last six weeks, Gore said: "A lot has changed in a very short time. This was the cherry on top.

"I couldn't have done this without so many people back home. So many people have supported me. Knowing they we're all behind me makes this pretty special."

So was his senior year.

Gore posted an 11-0 record with a 0.19 ERA and hit .478. He had 158 strikeouts, five walks in 74.1 innings pitched. His career mark was 41-2, with 556 strikeouts in 315 innings and a 0.35 ERA. His career batting numbers: .478 batting average, 11 doubles, seven home runs, 29 RBIs, 35 runs scored.

Gore joined Dylan Bundy, now a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, as the only baseball players to win the award.

"That's pretty special," he said. "I have to represent Gatorade and back it all up."

At a fun round-table interview session of the athletes by Steele, it was revealed Gore's nickname is "Love monkey," because of relationship advise he offered teammates. "I was the only senior on the team, so for some reason all the younger guys looked for me for advise," he said.

When he received the top award Tuesday, one of the female finalists yelled out "Way to go Love Monkey," drawing lots of laughs.

Towns ended the presentation by noting, "Love (Monkey) conquers all."

McLaughlin had an almost impossible task — duplicating her junior year — but she actually surpassed it on the high school stage.

The gazelle-like 5-9, 132-pound graduate of Union Catholic (Scotch Plains, N.J.) won her record 11th state championship and finished as the national leader in the 400 meters (51.88), 300 hurdles (38.90) and 400 hurdles (53.82). She qualified for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in the 400 hurdles.

At 16, she was the youngest U.S. athlete at those games. On Tuesday, she made more history with her second national Gatorade award. She was presented the award by Olympic volleyball medalist April Ross.

"My heart is racing right now," McLaughlin said after receiving the award. "All the girls were deserving. We've all become good friends. You not only have to be a great athlete but a great person to win one of these awards so it feels great.

"As I said at Rio, this is the end of the season, but it's not the end of my career. There's still so much to accomplish."

See McLaughin's take going into the ceremony and thumbnail sketches of all the athletes

Other male presenters at Tuesday's awards included Aaron Rodgers, Christian McCaffrey, Deshaun Watson and D'Angelo Russell. Abby Wambach and Tamika Catchings were female presenters.

For the first time, Gatorade honored two coaches: Mat Taylor, a football coach at Skyline (Sammamish, Wash.), and record-setting Cathy Self-Morgan, a girls basketball coach from Duncanville (Texas).