Rapid City Stevens’ Simeon Birnbaum was named the 2022-23 Gatorade South Dakota boys cross-country runner of the year on Monday. 

Birnbaum is the first Gatorade South Dakota boys cross-country runner of the year to be chosen from Stevens High School. 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 Birnbaum as South Dakota’s best high school boys cross country player. 

The state’s returning Gatorade Player of the Year, the 6-foot-1, 145-pound senior raced to a 54-second margin of victory at the Class AA state meet this past season with a time of 15:16.2, pacing the Raiders to the team title and winning his second straight individual crown. Birnbaum finished unbeaten against in-state competition and earned All-America status at both national championship meets with a top-five and a top-10 finish. He was the state’s fastest competitor at both regional qualifiers for nationals and his second-place showing at the Nike Heartland Regional Championship came by way of a personal-best clocking of 14:39.20. A talented, first chair alto saxophone player at his school, Birnbaum has volunteered locally playing the instrument for the elderly in nursing homes and at his church. Last summer, he and several peers traveled to work on indigenous community farms in rural Puerto Rico.

Birnbaum has maintained a weighted 3.86 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to run on scholarship at the University of Oregon this fall.