Gabby Coffey, a standout catcher and corner infielder from Prosper, Texas, and member of the prestigious Texas Glory travel ball program, has been selected to compete on the 16-member roster for Brasil U-19 Softball at the upcoming Pan American Youth Games 2021 to be held in Barranquilla, Colombia.
The games will be held from November 25 (Thanksgiving Day) through December 4, 2021, and Gabby’s parents will be flying down to watch her play, her father, Roger, told Extra Inning Softball.
“The CBBS, Brasil’s governing body for baseball and softball, informed us back in August,” the athlete’s father said.
Roger Coffey also said Gabby could have played for the Brazilian National team in late October but had to turn it down for two reasons.
“We declined an invitation to play with the Brasil National Team in a tournament at the end of the month in Argentina, as it conflicted with her official visit to Mississippi State and also because they wanted her for two weeks,” he explained today.
“It’s just starting Summer down there (South American) and some of the players are in their 20’s so they are out of school, but for Gabby we felt that she just can’t miss that many days of school, especially this being her Senior year of high school.”
Another detriment was the trip would have kept her from making her official campus trip.
“It also didn’t make sense for her to miss her official visit, which she has eagerly been waiting for since her 8th grade year when she accepted Mississippi State’s offer.”
Gabby, who repeated as a member of the 2022 Extra Elite 100, and her teammates at Prosper High School in Texas made a nice run last Spring in the State Tournament.
Although they fell a bit short, Gabby earned Texas 6A All-State honors after batting .444 in 35 games with 11 home runs, 27 walks, 42 RBIs and a .590 on-base percentage for her team that went 29-5-1. She also was the Dallas Fort Worth All-Metro Plex Junior of the Year and earned Dallas Morning News All-Area 1st Team honors.
This year (2022), there will be a strong core of five DI committed players to help Prosper make another run—the other four for the Eagles will be infielder Sydney Lewis (Maryland), infielder Ayden Allen (Houston), outfielder Riley McDaniel (California Baptist) and catcher/third baseman Elizabeth Moffitt (Texas Tech), who led the Dallas area with 16 home runs and was the Dallas Morning News Player of the Year.
Current, Gabby is serving as an athletic trainer for Prosper High’s football team, which she has done for the last four years.
“She wants to study Kinesiology at Mississippi State,” her father adds. “recently a player broke his leg during a game and Gabby helped call an ambulance and get him taken care of.”
Here’s more on this future SEC signee who will be getting a lot of frequent flier miles accumulated playing for Team Brasil over the next few years…
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10 Questions With Catcher Gabby Coffey… SEC Commit, Brazilian Jr. National Team Member and 2022 Extra Elite 100 Honoree!
Originally published April 7, 2020
Gabby Coffey from Prosper, Texas already has quite the resume.
A year ago tomorrow we profiled the catcher and lefty slugger when she made the Brazilian Jr. National Team and she had already committed to Mississippi State.
Impressively, she also had a chance to play for the Brazilian National Team as well as with Team USA’s 17U team and below you’ll read how that ended up.
This year, she was having a huge sophomore high school season as she was batting .509 with 24 RBIs and a .532 on-base base percentage through 22 games for Prosper High when the season was put on hold.
Selected to the 2022 Extra Elite 100 once again, Gabby—whose first name is Gabrielle—can also play the outfield and infield with her strong arm and overall athletic skills.
We caught up this week with the soft-spoken, but impressively articulate Texan, to learn more about what she’s doing these days… here’s our Q&A with this future SEC star…
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Last year when we profiled you, you were looking forward to playing for the Brazilian Jr. National Team… walk us through the last year plus and how that went…
Training with the Brazil team was a totally different experience from what you’d get here in the states. Down there everyone lives spread-out through the country where we had to take buses over to the club for the weekend.
The training sessions weren’t a scheduled time like 12-to-4; it was you get to the club, where they have bunk beds for the player to sleep, which is next to the fields, late Friday night,. We woke up early for team breakfast then would have team practice up until lunch, and once lunch was over you’d hit and warm up again for scrimmages before dinner.
For some of the scrimmages, rather than always playing against the sub-17 or national team we’d play in a round robin with some of the best men’s teams in the country. Not only were the adjustments to the style of play challenging the language barrier also had a strong effect because not many of them spoke English.
On the last day of the WBSC World Cup, my Brazil teammates and I were hanging out at the team hotel until it was time to go to the Championship Game between the US and Japan and the closing ceremonies. I was not aware of what was taking place that morning until I saw my parents at the game. The Brazil National team coach, Milton Konno was asking if I could join the National Team the following week in Canada to compete for a birth to the Olympic Games. It would mean I would miss another week of school back in Texas. It was cool to be asked, but it meant missing two of the first three weeks of school. Most of the players on the Brazil National team are no longer in school.
That same day, I received an email invite from USA Softball asking if I was interested in playing in the USA 17-U team being put together to compete for a birth for the 2020 18U World Cup. We decided it made more sense to compete with the USA 17-U team, players more my age and declined to join the Brazil National team in Canada.
As I had just played for Brazil, WBSC rules states a player must get a release from one country in order to represent another country. The Brazil Softball organization released me, but we weren’t able to get the WBSC approval in such a short time. It would have been cool to represent both my countries in the same year, but it didn’t work out. I’m looking forward for future opportunities to play internationally, as meeting and getting to know players from other countries was an experience I won’t forget. Overall it was a great experience getting to train, learn a different style of play and culture.
When did you start suspecting softball—at any level—was going to be in jeopardy this year?
We had a team sleepover a couple days before our game against Plano East, and at the sleepover some of the girls kept seeing posts about some of our neighboring school districts closing down so we naturally suspected our season was going to be at jeopardy.
Going into our game against Plano East; we knew we needed to leave it all on the field and that this could be our last game for a while. When I got back into the dugout after my at- bats, our manager who does Gamechanger for us, Mr. Mason, would always talk about the game as far as adjustments we needed to make in the game.
After I hit my grand slam, he gave me a high five and said, “That’s possibly your last at-bat for the season.” After that comment, it really started to hit me that the game was almost over and it would probably be our last game with this team.
Not long ago, you were able to catch a bullpen and do some weightlifting at the Iron Shop training facility… what is your day-to-day life now?
With the Iron Shop and Halo being closed, my brother and I have come up with a daily routine of getting schoolwork done, hitting and throwing at our house, then doing our own weights/ cardio workout.
Are you keeping in touch with teammates, both high school and club?
For both Prosper and Texas Glory, we have a group text where we’re constantly checking in on each other, sending TikToks, memes, or just having the most random conversations. Whether we’re in season seeing each other everyday or stuck at home in quarantine, we’re always talking.
What impact is the COVID-19 having on your city/area? Do you know anyone that’s been confirmed with it?
*** Scroll down to read more from Gabby including how she committed to Mississippi State and how COVID-19 is impacting her today…
