RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
On July 16, 2019, the Florida Gators softball program announced that Kinsey Goelz had transferred to Florida.
The release said that “the Lakewood Ranch High School standout finished the 2019 season as a redshirt freshman at Mississippi State and will be eligible to compete in 2021… With the Bulldogs, Goelz appeared in 24 games and picked up 19 starts at shortstop.”
Head Coach Tim Walton commented: “We’re excited to have Kinsey join our program this fall.”
“She’s a talented player that already has SEC experience and we’re looking forward to helping her progress both on and off the field as a Gator.”
Kinsey will make it a sister act in Gainesville, as she will be going to school with her younger sibling, Avery, a 2020 Extra Elite 100 honoree and a two-time Extra Inning Softball 1st Team All-American.
The older player’s journey to get to the University of Florida has been an interesting one and in this exclusive Inside Pitch the personable infielder shares her story…
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“Victorious” Preemie
My life has taken some crazy turns over the years, but I’m grateful for every experience I’ve had and I’ve learned a lot from every new experience.
It all started when I was born. I was born four months and 13 days early and I weighed one pound, eight ounces.
I was classified as a micro preemie and I was so small my dad could fit his wedding ring up my shoulder. I had to spend 88 days in the hospital before I could go home.
My parents named me Kinsey because it means “Victorious” in Old English and I had won the battle of surviving as a micro preemie.
Softball or Soccer?
When I was around four-years-old, my parents started getting me into sports. I did gymnastics, dance, and soccer. As I continued to get older I tried more sports. When I turned 6, I tried softball, basketball, golf, and tennis.
I decided to stick with soccer and softball because they were my favorites. I never thought about playing a sport in college until I was around 12-years-old in sixth grade.
I really enjoyed playing softball and would practice before and after softball practices and on the days I had soccer practice I would practice softball after soccer practice was done. I was really good at time management at that age and ended up getting all or most of my homework done after school in the after-school day care program until my parents would come pick me up from their work.
From there I would head to softball or soccer practice. During my time at middle school I wanted to play both soccer and softball in college, but I realized I was pretty good at both and I wanted to be great at one of those two sports. I chose softball because I loved the sport and really wanted to get better at it.
Going Campin’
I went to my first college softball camp at the University of Florida in sixth grade, but not to get recruited. I just went because I wanted to learn and get better—I had no idea recruiting was even a thing then!
I think it was a hitting camp and it was about two hours long. I don’t remember much of it, I just remembered I had a great time with my friends. I do remember having a soccer tournament in Gainesville and after our game I went over to watch a Florida softball game and I thought they were amazing!
After the summer of my seventh grade year I went to an FSU softball camp where you get to spend a couple nights in the dorms. I told a few girls on my travel team, which was the Suncoast Storm, at the time (now Tampa Mustangs-TJ) that we should go and we did.
While we were there, I remember we ran everywhere to get to the next station to be first and every time we got a chance to dive or be aggressive we did. We always sat in the front when the coaches or FSU players were talking.
I remember after the first day of camp Coach Travis Wilson walked up to us and said, “You guys hustled everywhere, gave 100 percent and always tried to be first at every station. Who do you guys play for? The Jacksonville Storm?”
We told him we played for the Suncoast Storm based out of Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida and that our team has been playing together since we were seven or eight years old. The coaches had never heard of our team and told us they would be following us from then on.
From this camp I realized that I wanted to play college softball and learned that college coaches could recruit you and you can verbally commit to a school.
Below is a picture of us– Kylie Toler who now plays at East Tennessee State, me, Kaylee Misiti and Bethaney Keen who plays at South Florida–right before we had to check in to the dorms. We saw the FSU Newspaper headline that said “Storm season under way” and since we were the Suncoast Storm at the time, we knew this was a good sign!
When the fall season rolled around I was starting eighth grade and my dad told us we would now become Tampa Mustangs-TJ and no longer be Suncoast Storm 98 because Tampa Mustangs is a more nationally known organization.
This was when I signed up for almost every Div. I college softball camp in the state of Florida. I went to camps at South Florida, Florida Atlantic, North Florida, Florida State, Florida, Florida Gulf Coast and Central Florida
From what I remember, a lot of the coaches from these schools were interested and told me to keep coming to camps and they would watch me at other tournaments, like Diamond 9 Showcase tournament in Orlando later in the fall
When I was 13 and 14 years old I wanted to stay close to home and decided when I was 14 to verbally commit to a school near me. As I got older, I continued to get better and wanted to keep challenging myself. I decided to de-commit from that school my junior year of high school.
