CHICAGO — In its 35th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company has selected Brooke McCubbin of Locust Grove High School as its 2019-20 Gatorade Georgia Softball Player of the Year. McCubbin is the first Gatorade Georgia Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Locust Grove 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 McCubbin as Georgia’s best high school softball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year award to be announced in June, McCubbin joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Catherine Osterman (2000-01, Cy Spring High School, Texas), Kelsey Stewart (2009-10, Arkansas City High School, Kan.), Carley Hoover (2012-13 D.W. Daniel High School, S.C.), Jenna Lilley (2012-13, Hoover High School, Ohio), Morgan Zerkle (2012-13 Cabell Midland High School, W. Va.), and Rachel Garcia (2014-15, Highland High School, Calif.).
The 5-foot-9 junior and right-handed pitcher led the Wildcats (33-2) to the Class 5A state championship this past season, posting a 23-1 record with a 0.65 ERA. McCubbin struck out 178 batters and walked just 18 in 140 innings pitched. The Georgia Dugout Club Player of the Year and the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Class 5A Pitcher of the Year, she also batted .412 with 12 home runs and 50 RBI.
A member of her school’s Future Farmers of America chapter, McCubbin has volunteered locally on behalf of youth softball programs. “Brooke McCubbin can beat you all by herself,” said Will Harrison, head coach at Union Grove High. “She can pitch, she can hit, she can play defense. She is dedicated to her craft and she attacks the game with a tenacity and ferociousness that is rarely seen at this level.”
McCubbin has maintained an A average in the classroom. She will begin her senior year of high school this fall.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track and field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. From the 12 national winners, one male and one female athlete are each named Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year. In all, 607 athletes are honored each year.
McCubbin joins Gatorade Georgia Softball Players of the Year Kelley Lynch (2018-19 & 2017-18, East Coweta High School), Keara Napoli (2016-17, Cambridge High School), Ashley Morgan (2015-16, Chapel Hill High School), and Kelly Barnhill (2014-15, Pope High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.
Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student-athletes, visit www.Gatorade.com/POY, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Gatorade.
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