Pasadena City College women's soccer sophomore Katy Coats, an All-State player and the state's second leading scorer in 2019, signed her national scholarship letter of intent to attend and play at Metropolitan State University of Denver (Colorado). Coats celebrated the signing with her parents, friends, teammates and PCC head coach Francisco Cantero at an on-campus signing ceremony on Friday.
In her 2-year PCC career, Coats rose to third on the school's all-time scoring list with 42 goals and 97 points. In 2019, she scored a South Coast Conference-high 31 goals, the second highest total in Lancers history. She added 11 assists and finished with 73 points. Coats led the state in scoring for most of the season, but was passed at the end of year by San Diego Mesa's Violet Renard for the California Community College scoring title (35 goals, 76 points).
Coats was at her best at home games at Robinson Stadium as she scored 22 goals in 11 contests played on a new for 2019 artificial turf surface at PCC. She had four hattricks, including twice scoring five goals in a game v. both Imperial Valley and West Los Angeles. The 2-time, All-South Coast Conference First Team selection also scored two goals in a game six different times.
"I honestly never aspired to be this high scorer," Coats said. "Then I scored five goals in our season opener, and from that point on things just carried from there. I'm very competitive and that drove me. Playing for Coach Cisco and (assistant) Coach Anthony (Jimenez), they don't give out too many individual compliments, so I think I was constantly looking for their approval of how well I was playing."
Coats, who had offers from the UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Los Angeles, said MSU Denver was the "right fit" because they offered her desired major in event planning. The 3.5 GPA student-athlete also will have family in the area as her older brother Justin lives in Denver.
The 5-foot-7 Coats will be playing center forward as a junior this coming season for the MSU Denver Roadrunners, a NCAA Division II university that plays in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
"She will certainly add another dimension to complement our attack in combination in the run of play as well as having the ability to finish from a variety of ranges," said MSU Denver head coach Tracy Chao about Coats' talents.
Coats came to PCC after a prolific high school career at Maranatha High, where she was an All-CIF Division 5 performer, a four-time, All-Olympic Conference selection and totaled 51 goals.