Milford senior Kelly Noll has been a solid leader for the Lady Eagles this year.

Milford senior Kelly Noll has been a solid leader for the Lady Eagles this year.
By Chris Chaney
Sports Editor

Playing under large expectations this season, the Milford Lady Eagles softball team has acquitted themselves nicely owning a 13-2 record and winning their last 10 contests.

“We ended last year on a pretty high note,” Milford head coach Christy Gregory said. “We lost to the runner-up in the state, Lebanon, but we had a lot of girls coming back. We were looking towards having a great season, high expectations, a lot of leadership and great experience and then we had a lot of roster changes.

“Coming into the preseason, we were making a lot of changes on a daily basis. Our quote has been ‘next man up,’ and that’s really what it’s been about. We told them, ‘you need to be able to handle the expectations. We’re not going to change our goals because our roster has changed.’

“There’s some girls with very limited experience who have had to mix with some girls who have a lot of experience.”

Despite the shuffling around of players, the Lady Eagles’ core talent has been able to be the anchor needed to put Milford in position to win the Eastern Cincinnati Conference for the third consecutive season.

“Our juniors have been league champs their first two years. Our seniors felt that one game crushing blow that cost us league their freshman year, so they’re hungry to win league, too,” Gregory said. “Val Thompson on the mound has been amazing. Her ERA (0.75) is just amazing. She’s just done a great job for us in the circle.

“We have senior leadership from Kelly Noll and Hannah White both doing the job offensively and defensively. Kelsey Seitz was an All-State player last year and is coming off of a labrum surgery. She missed the whole preseason and part of the regular season, but she came out hot. She’s continuing to hit and hasn’t missed a beat.”

Juniors Katelyn Rheude and Kelly Carraro hold down the infield and outfield, respectively, while freshman Katelyn Reynolds has filled in behind the plate.

While the Lady Eagles got comfortable in their new roles, the team got off to a shaky start, dropping 2 of their first five regular season contests. However, since opening 3-2, the Lady Eagles have not lost dating back to April 1.

“At that point, we were just trying to figure us out,” Gregory said. “We think we’ve put the puzzle pieces together. We really do a lot of learning at practice. We practice hard. We learn and we relearn. We address game-like situations and we’re just hungry.”

That passion and hunger has led to a perfect 10-0 mark in the ECC through two-thirds of the regular-season schedule. Having swept the season series against Turpin, a doubleheader versus winless Withrow on Friday, April 29 and two games against second-place Kings the first week of May will determine if Milford can earn a three-peat.

“We’re hitting the ball well and Val’s been amazing pitching against our league,” Gregory said. “You’ve got to get up for every game. We knew it would us, Loveland, Turpin and Kings. Loveland has been down a little bit this year, so with our last games against Kings, we knew we had to get better every day because of what is coming.”

While the two games against Kings next week are first and foremost on the Milford radar, the opportunity to build upon last year’s sectional championship is also a big goal for the Lady Eagles.

“At least we lost to Lebanon, which is a compliment to Lebanon,” Gregory said of their district final opponent last season. “They were a great team, but we knew that had we not caught them that early in the tournament, we would have beaten them later.

“But our team got the taste. We knew that they were ready. Coming into this year, we had a lot of excitement for that. The girls aren’t backing down. We still have a job to do.”