NEW ORLEANS — Lusher Charter School standouts Hasani Salaam (volleyball) and Ry-Anne Riley (women's track and field) signed athletic scholarships Wednesday with Xavier University of Louisiana.
     Both are New Orleans residents, and both will be biology/pre-medical majors at Xavier this fall.
     Salaam, a 6-foot middle blocker/right-side hitter, was a three-time first-team all-district player at Lusher. She is playing this year for NOLA Volleyball Club after playing the previous five years with Cajunland. At her school she is a member of the National Honor Society and the Lusher Scholars Program. She has a 3.8 grade-point average and an ACT composite score of 29.
     Riley was the LHSAA Class 3A state champion outdoors in 2015 in the 400-meter dash. Her time at that meet, 56.86 seconds, is 12-hundredths of a second slower than SiMon Franklin's XU school record from 2013. Also at the 2015 state meet, Riley placed third in the long jump (17 feet, 1 3/4 inches) and ran on the 400 (first place) and 1,600 (third place) relay teams.
     During the 2016 indoor season, Riley helped Lusher win the LHSAA Division II title in the 800 relay.
     Xavier competes in NAIA Division I as a member of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. The Gold Nuggets in 2015 won their fifth consecutive GCAC regular-season and tournament championships in volleyball, and on Saturday XU women's track will pursue a fourth straight team title at the GCAC Championships at Tad Gormley Stadium.