Staff Directory

Brittany Gray-Cardenas

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
Phone:
(417) 836-4136

Brittany Gray-Cardenas joined the Missouri State softball staff in August 2024. She is in charge of working with the Bears' pitching staff.

Under Gray-Cardenas' guidance, the Bears' pitching staff has produced two NFCA Midwest All-Region honorees in McKenzie Vaughan and Emily Koranda. In 2026, Gray-Cardenas helped develop Koranda who won 13 games and owned a 2.76 ERA as a freshman. Koranda struck out 104 batters, the most by a Bears pitcher since 2022 and the most by a Mo State freshman hurler since 2014. The right-hander was also a member of the CUSA All-Freshman Team, a two-time CUSA Freshman of the Week and was once named CUSA Pitcher of the Week in her debut season. In Gray-Cardenas' first season at Mo State in 2025, she helped guide Vaughan in her return from injury. In the circle, Vaughan won a team-leading 11 games and struck out 49 batters. In addition to all-region honors, the two-way star also earned first-team all-conference laurels.

In 2026, the Missouri State pitching staff racked up nine shutouts, which ranked 38th nationally, while Koranda ranked 44th in the nation accounting for four shutouts. The Bears' staff tied for second in Conference USA with seven saves, paced by Paityn Engemann with three which ranked 60th nationally and tied for fifth in CUSA.

Gray-Cardenas arrived in Springfield after spending the previous three seasons as the pitching coach at Indiana State University. While in Terre Haute, she was also in charge of fundraising efforts, coordinating team travel and overseeing both the recruiting process and the academic success of student-athletes.

Prior to her time at ISU, Gray-Cardenas was a graduate assistant at the University of Missouri for two seasons where she assisted with film, scouting and academic supervision. She graduated from Mizzou with a master’s degree in Education in 2021.

Gray-Cardenas played at the University of Georgia, where she was an All-American pitcher for the Bulldogs. She compiled a 60-27 record in 126 appearances and owned a 2.06 career earned run average over 518.2 innings pitched at UGA. As a senior in 2018, Gray-Cardenas led the country with a 0.48 ERA while posting a 16-1 record before an injury ended her season early. She would go on to earn First-Team All-SEC, First-Team All-Region and Second-Team All-America honors to cap her senior campaign.

She helped lead the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament all four years of her career, including two trips to the Women’s College World Series in 2016 and 2018. Following her playing career, Gray-Cardenas served as a student assistant coach at UGA for a short stint before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies and a certificate in American Sign Language in 2019.

A native of Greenwood, Ind., Gray played four years of softball at Greenwood High School where she was a four-time all-conference honoree, a two-time Johnson County Player of the Year and a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year nominee.

She married her husband, Corbin, in July 2023.