USA Softball announced today the 2021 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Watch List with the top 50 players in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 2021 softball season. Australia, Great Britain, Mexico and USA are represented on the list, including six probable Olympians for the upcoming summer Games.
Australia’s Gabbie Plain, Mexico’s Tatyana Forbes and Nicole Mendes, and USA’s Rachel Garcia, Dejah Mulipola and Bubba Nickles are the six players expected to be in Tokyo playing for their respective nations.
Garcia, Mulipola and Nickles have been included on the USA Softball Olympic Team. USA Softball announced their 15-athlete Olympic roster in October 2019, and after the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to 2021, and USA Softball confirmed the selected roster for this year’s Olympics.
Gabbie Plain, a right-handed pitcher from Washington University, helped Australia win the WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania Olympic Qualifier and qualify for the Games, and is one of 23 players on the Olympic preliminary roster. Forbes and Mendes were in the starting lineup for Mexico during the WBSC Softball Americas Olympic Qualifier, and helped their team to win the Olympic ticket for the first time in history. Plain, Forbes and Mendes are all strong candidates to make Australia’s and Mexico’s Olympic teams.
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The top-50 athlete's list for this NCAA season includes 11 WBSC U-19 world champions with USA. Nickles won twice (2015 and 2017); Mulipola, Sis Bates, Mary Iakopo, Gisselle Juarez and Baylee Klingler helped USA to win the 2017 Junior Women’s Softball World Championship. Finally, Charla Echols, Megan Faraimo, Montana Fouts, Kelli Godin and Lexi Kilfoyl won the 2019 WBSC U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup.
The list also includes Georgina Corrick, who was the ace of the Great Britain 2019 team that finished runner up in the WBSC Softball Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier.
At the end of each season since 2002, the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year is awarded to the best college softball player of the year. Some of the top softball stars who have received this prize in the past include Stacey Nuveman, Cat Osterman, Monica Abbott and Danielle Lawrie.
