North Bay Haven's Goodpaster rising to join nation's elite

When Kaylee Goodpaster was informed by her father while in Gainesville for a travel ball tournament that she had been named an All-American by Extra Innings Softball, a rare honor for a middle school-aged player, she couldn't have been much more stunned.

"I was sitting in a hotel room and my dad was like, 'you're an All-American' and I was like, 'what?'" Goodpaster said. "It was super cool. I didn't think I could be one because I was in the eighth grade. I was beyond excited and could barely sleep that night because I was so excited."

Given all that the rising North Bay Haven freshman has already accomplished, it might be the last time for a while that Goodpaster is taken off guard by such an honor.

Goodpaster has already earned First Team All-State honors twice, been named The News Herald's County Player of the Year following the 2022 season, and with 19 career home runs is already Bay County's all-time home run queen.

Her burgeoning reputation has placed her among not just the state's but also the nation's elite, with Extra Innings Softball ranking her the 16th overall player in the Class of 2026, and Legacy & Legends Softball listing her as the eighth-ranked player in her class.

Though college coaches aren't allowed to offer her a scholarship until the start of her junior year, Goodpaster has already attended camps at some of the top Division-I programs in the country this summer such as Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech.

She has also gotten to play in some of the biggest travel tournaments in the country with her Birmingham Thunderbolts squad such as the Colorado Sparkler Tournament in Denver, the Power 50 Tournament in Newberry, and the PGF Show Me The Money event in Gainesville. On Friday, she left for Huntington Beach, Calif., to compete in the PGF National Championships for her final tournament of what has been a very busy and memorable summer.

"It's been awesome," Goodpaster said. "I'm very thankful and grateful for all the places I get to go for softball and all the people and things I get to see. I'm grateful for all the people who ranked me, very grateful to get my name out there. I'm super appreciative when people see me the way they do with the rankings. I'm always super excited and thrilled."

While her production through her seventh and eighth grade seasons would paint her as something of a softball prodigy, to say that Goodpaster was destined for greatness from the jump wouldn't be entirely accurate.

Eloy Estrada, Goodpaster's personal hitting coach and an assistant at North Bay Haven, started working with her when she was in the fifth grade and said his initial impression wasn't that he was coaching a future Division-I player.

"Quite honestly, when I first started doing lessons with her she couldn't hit the ball to second base," Estrada said. "But the first thing that you could see was that she was athletic. I could tell that she had some potential and was going to get better."

Get better she did, with Goodpaster beginning her varsity career two years later and batting .449 with seven home runs and 44 RBI before raising those numbers in her eighth grade year to .567 with 12 homers and 48 RBI.

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Even better Goodpaster's breakout season in 2020, Estrada said he realized she had the ability to be an elite player. He would know, having previously worked with several college players, including Auburn All-American Kasey Cooper, as well as his daughter and former Mosley star Selena Estrada, who went to Southern Miss.

"I'm extremely proud of her, but it doesn't surprise me," Estrada said of Goodpaster's rise as a prospect. "My daughter was the first D-I softball player out of this area and I kind of knew what type of athlete you needed to be at what age and so forth. When you talk to an 11-year-old and tell her how to position the bat and how to move her hands and they pick it up immediately you know you've got something special. It's that ability to take instruction and actually do it that you look for. If they can do it at 12 then they're gonna be that much more advanced at 14."

Having turned 15 in the last month, Goodpaster now gets set to enter high school where she will have four more years to add on to her already impressive resume and reputation. For the moment, however, she said she's simply focused on doing all of the things necessary to make herself the kind of player and person that the best softball coaches in America will want to offer a scholarship to when she becomes eligible for them to talk to on Sept. 1, 2024.

"I try not to focus on rankings and that stuff as much because I don't want anything to go to my head," she said. "I try to stay as humble as I can and remember where I come from and keep working hard. Just getting ranked highly when I'm 15 is not gonna get me into college. The more I stay focused on practicing and performing during games the better the outcomes I will receive."

That approach is consistent with North Bay Haven coach Butch Bernard's appraisal of Goodpaster, whose focus and maturity he praised.

"I just think she's really well-rounded," he said. "You can talk to her off to the side and definitely tell that the maturity is there and she's focused on doing the stuff that she's supposed to be doing until the time that she graduates. She's got an extremely high GPA, she's involved in certain clubs at school, and obviously she works really hard at softball. I just think she's very grounded in what she has to do between now and the time that she graduates so that she can do some of the things that she's dreamed about."

Two years after starting her varsity career with still four years to go, Goodpaster is on track to be one of the most decorated and sought after high school athletes from Bay County in recent memory.

"I always hoped that I would be on the path that I'm on right now," she said. "Two years ago I would've hoped that this is where I would be. I'm happy that I've been able to fulfill my dream so far."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: NBH softball's Kaylee Goodpaster: one of nation's best players