CHICAGO (June 18, 2021) — In its 36th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Megan Bloodworth of Crisp County High School as its 2020-21 Gatorade Georgia Softball Player of the Year. Bloodworth is the first Gatorade Georgia Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Crisp County 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 Bloodworth 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, Bloodworth joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Cat 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-6 senior shortstop led the Cougars (28-4-1) to the Class 3A quarterfinals this past season. The Class 3A Player of the Year, Bloodworth batted .621 with 15 home runs, 60 RBI, 56 runs scored and an OPS of 2.107. A Premier Girls Fastpitch High-School All-American, she is a two-time First Team All-State selection and was ranked as the nation’s No. 10 prospect in the Class of 2021 by Extra Inning Softball.
Bloodworth has volunteered locally on behalf of the Beta Club and youth softball programs. “If there was a better player than Megan Bloodworth in the state of Georgia then I’m really glad we didn’t play her,” said Kevin Mobley, head coach at Pike County High. “She always makes her presence felt on the field—not just at the plate, where she was fantastic, but also on defense. She was easily the most dominant player that we faced.”
Bloodworth has maintained a 4.31 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a National Letter of Intent to play softball on scholarship at the University of Alabama 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 & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Bloodworth joins recent Gatorade Georgia Softball Players of the Year Brooke McCubbin (2019-20, Locust Grove High School), Kelley Lynch (2018-19 & 2017-18, East Coweta High School), and Keara Napoli (2016-17, Cambridge High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
Through Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Bloodworth has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of their choosing. Bloodworth is also eligible to submit a 30-second video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $2.7 million across 1,117 organizations.
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 playeroftheyear.gatorade.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
