Tag Archive for: Maddy Taylor

LEADERSHIP THAT IS TAYLOR MADE

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AUSTINTOWN OH- Maddy Taylor is a name anyone who has been following Austintown Fitch softball will know very well. She has consistently been a statistical leader for the Falcons. Now as a senior, Maddy will take a bigger step into being a vocal and emotional leader to the team. It is something Maddy is prepared for, she had leadership moments last season as a junior, and the seniors she was under gave her phenomenal role models.

Maddy comes into this season with one main goal. Help get her team to state. That’s been her focus. She knows that the roster is capable of it. She will be a big key to the Falcons success. She is a staple of the lineup and supplies the Falcons with a lot of power.

Madi puts in a lot of work in the weight room. We could not complete an interview with her without talking about lifting. She says it’s her favorite thing to do. Watching her progress with strength coach Dan Wedding it’s easy to tell. It’s little things like her work ethic in the weight room that make her an example for the youth on the roster.

Maddy caught up with Anthony Hartwig and Ty Bartell on YSN’s Running Point. She talks about her senior season, the leadership responsibilities she’ll be taking this season, and much more. Get to know one of the leaders of the Falcon softball squad in the latest player profile.

Presented By:

 

HOT CORNER: WITH SPECIAL GUEST EMMA JOHNSON

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Another weekend has gone by and that means more phenomenal  softball to talk about, and more great talent to highlight. Also on this edition we have a wonderful special guest. The first current college coach to join the Hot Corner. Emma Johnson, associate head coach at Kent State.

We’ll start with some news out of California. The PGF has canceled the All American game that was scheduled for August 1st and to be televised on ESPNU. Previous guest and friend of the blog Riley Frizell was scheduled to play in that game. She’ll still be playing in TCS Nationals in Georgia coming up soon. We’ll stay updated on how that goes.

This edition’s shoutout goes to Belle Hummel. Belle is a 2022 from Lakota West High School. She plays travel for Ohio Hawks 16U Gold-Hutchinson. She hit .494 last season for West with 17 RBI and 2 HR. But what she excelled at his her speed and slapping ability. Definitely capable of hitting the long ball, in fact she hit one this weekend in the Hawks tie with Lasers Teal. The fact that pitcher’s have to at least respect her power while being terrified of her speed makes this 2022 a gem. Keep an eye on Belle because she’s going to do great things.

Friends of the blog

As always we will catch up with our friends of the blog. Let’s start with Ohio Lasers Yellow who finishes their summer this weekend. The Lasers went 3-2-1. Maci Boggess pitched 22.2 innings and only gave up one earned run on the weekend. She struck out 13. Austintown Fitch’s Maddy Taylor hit .467 going 7-15 with 4 RBI. Congratulations to the Lasers on a great summer.

Now let’s see how that offense of USSSA Pride- Scarlet is doing. Yep they’re still explosive. The Pride hit 13  HR’s over the weekend. Sydney Mercer hit 4. Josie Spano hit 3. They’re pitching is still holding strong as well. The Pride has a team ERA of 2.79. Liana Morreale is leading them with an ERA of 2.39 in 67.1 IP. She’s stuck out 68. The Pride went 7-2 on the weekend and have a summer record of 38-9. They’ll finish their summer this weekend at the Midwest Summer Showcase in North Ridgeville

Special Guest Emma Johnson

(Courtesy KSU Athletics)

I am pleasured to welcome the first current college coach to join the Hot Corner. Emma is the newly announced Associate Head Coach of Kent State. Johnson is one the most decorated players in the Kent State program. She won MAC pitcher of the year twice during her career. Her senior season she led Kent State to a 41-13 record. She ranked in the top 5 nationally in strike outs per 7 innings, and had the nation’s third lowest ERA. These numbers helped Johnson be drafted 25th overall in the NPF draft by the Pennsylvania Rebellion, where she spent two seasons.

Johnson has completed her third season as an assistant on the Kent State staff. She was promoted to Associate Head Coach on July 1st.

 

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqNnu5UJ_QA[/embedyt]

 

HOT CORNER: WITH SPECIAL GUEST JESSICA SHULTS

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Welcome back to the Hot Corner! We took a week off on a rather slow weekend with a lot of local travel teams off, but we are back with a ton of softball to talk about after the 4th of July. As always promised this blog will merge local softball coverage with the elite softball world, and boy do we have some awesome guests planned for the month of July. Starting today, as the Hot Corner welcomes former Oklahoma Sooner, and 2013 National Champion, Jessica Shults. 

 

Weekend Recap

 

Now in a normal summer this would be one of the biggest weekends in travel softball. Florida and Colorado both annuals host multiple national 4th of July tournaments. However a chunk of those were canceled due to COVID -19.  Before we check in on teams that are friends of the blog, I want to give a shoutout to Kylie Macy and her Atlanta Vipers-Holbrook team. They took home the trophy in one of the Colorado tournaments not canceled. The Triple Crown 4th of July National Tournament. I’ve been following Kylie for a while. The Georgia Bulldog commit from Grayson High School is a rising star. The Vipers went 10-1 on the weekend and beat NE Gold Perkins 7-2 in the championship. Congratulations to Kaylie and the Vipers! 

 

Now to our friends of the blog! USSSA Scarlet got back in action this weekend at the USA Battle of the Burgh in Cranberry PA. The Pride went 7-1 over the weekend. In case you were wondering, yes their offense is still putting up video game type numbers. They hit 10 home runs over the weekend. Their team total is 50 now in 38 games played. Sydney Mercer is locked in this summer. She’s hitting .549 with 16 HR and 54 RBI. Don’t let their offensive power over shadow the job Liana Morreale is doing in the circle. She’s 8-2 with an ERA of 2.25 and has struck out 51, she’s only walked 19. 

 

Ohio Lasers Yellow went to the Midwest Firecracker Showcase this weekend. You can add another shutout to Maci Boggess’ tab. In their first game of the weekend she threw a gem in the Lasers 1-0 win. Going 5 innings, striking out 6 and giving up 0 runs on 3 hits. Austintown Fitch’s Maddy Taylor hit .333 on the weekend with 5 RBI. The Lasers went 4-2-1 on the weekend. 

 

If you want your team weekly highlighted on the Hot Corner, it’s really easy. Just get in contact with me (Anthony Hartwig) on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and keep me updated on your team’s schedule and stats. The more teams that are friends of the blog the better! 

 

Special Guest: Jessica Shults

Jessica Shults(18) / Oklahoma Sooners

 

I am very excited to welcome Jessica Shults to the Hot Corner. Jessica is one of the best catchers in softball ever. It’s a short list, and in my opinion she’s on it. She played at Oklahoma from 2010-2013. Here are some of her accolades: 

3 time NFCA All American 

2012 NFCA Catcher of the Year

3 Time Selection as All- Big 12

2013 National Champion. 

 

Jessica went on to be a graduate assistant for Oklahoma from 2014-2016. She was an assistant coach at Houston from 2016-2019. Shults was drafted 3rd overall by the USSSA Pride in 2013. She played in the NPF until 2016. She won a Cowles Cup with the Pride in 2013-2014. She now does hitting and coaching lessons through Gap2Gap.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsHqrnOKkA4[/embedyt]

HOT CORNER: WEEKEND RECAP

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Its Monday, which means there’s a lot of softball results to dive into from the weekend. Ohio holds some of the best travel tournaments in the Midwest. One of the tournaments that rises above the rest is the D1 Fastpitch Outlaws Summer Invitational Showcase.

The Beverly Bandits travel organization is highly respected and their name is all over the Championship list at the Outlaws Showcase. Their Demarini Richards team won the 16U division, and the Beverly Bandits Dorsey team won the 18U. In their 16U division Shelby Westler is a name on that team I’ve been following for a while. A 2022 from River Valley High School in Marion OH Shelby is a catcher/infielder/utility player that can really swing the bat well. On Saturday night she hit a go ahead 2 run HR on the Bandits way to a 7-3 win.

Friends of the Hot Corner the Ohio Lasers Yellow Team also competed at the Outlaws showcase. After a 0-0 tie to start off their Thursday, they beat Finesse 5-2. The rest of their weekend didn’t go as planned as they lost two one run games to Turning2. Maddy Taylor from Austintown Fitch had a couple RBI over the weekend. Maci Boggess still pitches pretty well in the circle throughout the weekend. In 10 innings pitched she only gave up 5 earned runs and struck out 11.

The USSSA Pride Scarlet team wasn’t at the Outlaws Showcase, but had a great weekend at the Sheer Madness Showcase. They won all 8 of their games and were Co-Champions because of the championship game being rained out. They hit 11 more home runs on the weekend as a team bringing their total to 39 on the summer. Sommer Bourne and Sydney Mercer each hit 2 bombs. Maris Barbato got one out to push her weekend total to a eye popping 13. USSSA’s pitching was amazing this weekend too, Tori Long and Liana Morreale each threw no hitters. Morreale did it with every pitch being stressful as the Pride snuck out a 1-0 win over Stingrays 03. The Pride is hitting .432 AS A TEAM! It’s just an incredible offensive lineup, and if they’re tossing no hitters Im not sure what the game plan is playing them in the future. In 30 games they’ve outscored their opponents 231-83. Do the math and that’s an average of a 5 run margin of victory for the Pride. Dominant much like their professional counter parts.

Speaking of USSSA’s professional team, they begin play tonight and I couldn’t be more excited that elite professional softball is back in action. USSSA Pride and Scrap Yard Fastpitch begin a summer tour today where they will play at different events held in each of their headquarters. A season playing each other in exhibition games in front of teams that have come to play in the events their hosting. That may sound underwhelming to the casual softball fan two teams playing each other all summer, but when the two rosters have 95% of the elite softball world on it, and you know their future could very possibly include a league of their own after their non compete from the NPF expires it’s very exciting. Pretty much every player who is on the USA Olympic roster will be represented in this summer tour that is being tagged #BetterTogether. I think that tag says a lot about what the future might hold for Scrap Yard and USSSA. Who knows? You may be seeing some members of the summer tour as special guests to the Hot Corner as the summer goes on. Stay tuned!!

HOT CORNER: PERFECT STORM RECAP

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Softball made its return to the area this past weekend, and it busted the doors wide open. Thunder Elite hosted a 92 team tournament spanning from 10U to 18U. Teams from all over Ohio, and some from Pennsylvania we’re competing at four different venues throughout the area.

I have a few takeaways from not only the games I watched, but also the updates I saw from a lot of these team’s wonderfully run social media pages. The first takeaway looking at the scores of the games this weekend it was clear offense was not a problem. On bracket play Sunday alone there were 24 games that had at least one team in double digit runs. I was expecting pitchers to have an advantage in the first weekend back. It doesn’t look like that was always the case.

The most competitive and thrilling game of bracket play Sunday came in 10u where the championship game between Thunder Elite 09 and Ohio ICE purple. Thunder Elite took a 5-4 lead in to the bottom of the 7th, only to see ICE tie things up. Then ICE walked it off for a 6-5 win.

Ohio USSSA Pride Scarlet showed how potent it’s lineup is over the weekend as they hit 6 HR’s as a team on Saturday. 3 of them by Josie Spano. Tori Long and Sydney Mercer also went yard. Mercer added another home run on Sunday. The Prides lineup is powerful.

(Courtesy Ohio USSSA Pride- Scarlet)

Maddy Taylor From Austintown Fitch got her first home run of the summer over the weekend for the Lasers. She’ll be someone to watch as the summer goes on. An absolute division 1 type talent.

(Courtesy Britton Taylor)

Other Championship scores: in the 12u division Silver Creek Prospects beat RC Venom 13-7. In the 14u Lake Erie Warhawks beat Wolfpack 06 10-0. 16u saw the Garroway Outlaws beat USSSA Pride Scarlet 8-3.

I personally was watching the 18u part of this tournament. It was full of high school seniors that may have been the last chance to see play in the area. The Ohio Warriors were the local team in the bracket. Mostly made up of either seniors or juniors, their lineup is loaded with local talent. I was impressed with Bri Callow out of McDonald who took most of the pitching duties over the weekend. Kaili Gross is also a pitcher on their roster, but wasn’t quite warmed up to pitch this weekend. Bri also showed great strength at the plate. Some other prominent names on the Warriors roster are Ally Nitolli, Cam Latanzio, Brooke Bobbey, and Abby Farber all out of Poland. Lexi Diaz our of Mooney gives them tremendous speed. Delaney Early out of East Palestine is a high quality slapper in the lineup. They have a cannon behind the plate in Lauren Maughan out of Boardman. The Warriors went 3-0 in pool play on Saturday. They earned the two seed in bracket Sunday. With a bye, the win their first game on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Predators. The Warriors were up 4-1 for most of the game, but had to hold off a rally in the final inning to win 4-3. In the 18u championship they played the Pittsburgh Passion who upset Parma in the semis 10-8. The Warriors fell behind early but kept clawing back. Trailing 11-4 in their final at bats the Warriors scored 5 runs and had the tying runs on base before falling 11-9.

It was a great weekend of softball. The guidelines set down by the Ohio Heath Department were followed at the games I attended. It was a refreshing sense of normalcy.

This weekend there are tournaments at Boardman’s Field of Dreams, and McClure Park In Canfield. I will try to hit them both weather pending and have another travel ball recap next week.

Below are highlights of the Ohio Warriors Bracket Sunday games.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_LeW95prrA[/embedyt]