Lady Owls' Boseman MaxPreps National Freshman Of Year

Ooltewah Pitcher Headlines Publication's All-America Team

  • Friday, July 17, 2015
  • Larry Fleming
Kayla Boseman, shown pitching in Ooltewah's District 5-AAA championship game, has been selected as the MaxPreps National Freshman Player of the Year.  Boseman went 22-4 this past season and posted a 1.46 ERA while hitting .531 with 13 home runs.
Kayla Boseman, shown pitching in Ooltewah's District 5-AAA championship game, has been selected as the MaxPreps National Freshman Player of the Year. Boseman went 22-4 this past season and posted a 1.46 ERA while hitting .531 with 13 home runs.
photo by Dennis Norwood

Kayla Boseman may need to enlarge her trophy case.

Boseman, a hard-throwing a softball pitcher, racked up her most prestigious postseason honor Friday when she was named the MaxPreps National Freshman Player of the Year.

“I’m really honored and have to say I wasn’t expecting this,” Boseman said of the MaxPreps award. “My mom (Felicia) and dad (Robert) told me about it this morning. I wasn’t really expecting this, but this is a big one.

Ooltewah coach Jon Massey is just sitting back and watching Boseman follow up a superlative rookie season by hauling in more and more honors.

“She just keeps on getting these awards and this is a big one because it’s a national publication,” Lady Owls coach Jon Massey said.

“The MaxPreps guy (Tom Mauldin) called me a couple of weeks ago wanting some information on Kayla. He told me she had a good shot at the (player of the year) award.”

Earlier this month, the 15-year-old Boseman, a Mississippi State commitment, was named to the Full Count Softball All-America second team, one of only five freshmen on the squad. She was also ranked No. 12 on that publication’s 2018 Hot 100 prospect list.

Boseman earned a spot on the Tennessee Sports Writers Association All-State team and the Tennessee Softball Coaches Association tabbed her as its Class AAA Miss East Tennessee Player of the Year. She finished in the top five balloting for the prestigious Gatorade Player of the Year in the state.

But MaxPreps did Full Count one better by putting her on its freshman All-America team and threw in the national POY award for good measure.

Boseman will have plenty to talk about with her Birmingham Thunderbolts 99 teammate Kendall Beth Sides this weekend when the nationally ranked team plays in the Legacy Showcase in Atlanta. MaxPreps named Sides the sophomore player of the year. Sides has committed to Alabama.

Side, an outfielder, led Sumiton (Ala.) Christian School to a Class 2A state title. She led the nation in hits (116), runs scored (97, a national record) and stolen bases (111) while batting .612

In fact, all 13 Thunderbolts players have made non-binding commitments to Division I universities.

MaxPreps bumped up Boseman to its freshman All-America team and added the national player of the year award.

“Anytime an Ooltewah student-athlete picks up awards like this it’s certainly very positive for our school,” Massey said. “As I’ve said before, it all goes back to hard work. Kayla doesn’t play any other sports now, sticking strictly with softball. She’s got a lot more time to work on her craft and get better.”

Dickson County’s Brooklin Lee won the Gatorade award and those two highly touted pitchers squared off twice in the state tournament. Boseman won the first game with a 3-2 win in nine innings, but Lee notched a 6-5, 12-inning victory to eliminate the Lady Owls.

The Lady Owls (40-10) finished third in the state tournament and Boseman had a 22-4 record with a 1.46 ERA. She struck out 241 in 172 innings. She batted .531 and hit 13 home runs and drove in 68 runs. She added 15 doubles and four triples.

Included in her 172 innings with the Lady Owls, Boseman threw 35 in the state tournament – every pitch in all four games in Murfreesboro. She was one-girl pitching staff, throwing 481 combined pitches that included 335 strikes, struck out 24 and walked six.

Boseman yielded 10 earned runs, eight coming in 9- and 12-inning losses to eventual champion Wilson Central and runner-up Dickson County, a final-day setback that relegated the Lady Owls to a third-place finish in their first state tournament appearance since 2008.

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

 

 

 

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