Regional seventh and eighth grade softball champion, Allison Miller gets out during a scrimmage during the 2023 Reds Camp at Wald Park
Two participants from the Maysville Cincinnati Reds summer youth baseball and softball camp will be returning to Great American Ballpark later in the year.
The camp pulled into Maysville as one of its many stops throughout the summer in mid-July. Each camper throughout the week competed in a variety of skills competitions, with their scores being submitted at the end of the week. The top 10 of each age group will return to Great American Ballpark in the Cincinnati Reds’ last home game to compete against each other to determine the champion of this years camps.
In the first and second grade softball division, Maysville’s Lydia Posey placed fourth among all competitors with a score of 366. Posey placed behind the third place competitor by 22 points, with Centerville’s Aria Nickell scoring a 388.
Posey is the granddaughter of St. Pat Saints head baseball coach, Tom Posey, and has been practicing the game of softball for a long time. Her scores in the skills competitions have earned her the right to compete at Great American Ballpark, against six other competitors who placed high enough to compete in the division.
Regional softball champ for seventh and eighth grade softball, Allison Miller is ranked second among all participants in the division, with a total score of 799, coming in just behind the first place participant, Eden Clark from Centerville, who scored an 812.
Miller, although only a eighth grader, is a member of the Robertson County varsity softball team. As a seventh grader in 2023, she recorded five hits across her 26 at-bats, scoring six runs and four RBI’s. As a pitcher for the Lady Devils, Miller recorded 30 strikeouts, pitching in 19 total innings. This would be her first year pitching for the team.
She was far from the only middle schooler playing on the school’s varsity team, with the Lady Devils roster only sporting one senior, Emily Case. Apart from Case, the Lady Devils were made up of five middle schoolers, and an overwhelming majority of freshmen and sophomores. The young team struggled quite a bit in 2023, winning just two games, both against the Newport Ladycats, who went 0-23 on the season. The teams first meeting last year in March, ended up as the states new highest scoring game of all time, with Robertson County winning 37-36.
The skills competitions campers competed in encompassed all areas of the game, including base running, bat speed and fielding. The champions day competition will be the same test as what was given at camp.
The championship competition will be a tough, competitive environment, in each age division. With the younger categories pitting the best of the best little league players in Reds Country against one another, and the older categories having current and future varsity and travel ball players compete to determine definitively who is the best player of the game.
The champions day competition will commence following the Reds/ Pirates game on Sunday, September 24. All parents of competing athletes will receive tickets to the game, and competitors will be invited onto the field after the game is over. The Reds have a 29-32 record at home so far in 2023.
