Kossuth High School – 2021 Division 1-3A Champions
Home Lady Aggie Grown: Influx of talent pushes Kossuth softball forward 2021 Lady Aggie team wins the Division 1-3A title in one of the toughest divisions in the state me, I’m getting to see some of these kids have grown just within a year and how hard they’ve worked. It’s big when you can get that many Division 1-3A softball is not for the faint of kids back,” Mills explained. heart. An influx of talent has spurred life into the Year in and year out it hosts some of the best KHS softball program, and according to Mills, play across the state, and the Kossuth Aggie it’s all been about how the community as a softball team is an instrumental part of that whole has bought into softball at a young age. heightened level of competition. More girls are playing travel softball than ever One of the driving forces for this level of before, and that’s given them a chance to not competition in Aggieland was started with the only be more skilled as an individual, but also current assistant coach Carleigh Mills back to be able to work together as a team. when she donned the Maroon and White. Mills “You get to learn who you’re playing with,” went on to have a successful collegiate softball said Mills. “You get to learn kind of how the career and has now happily returned home to person next to you plays or the person behind help her players hopefully do the same. you plays.” “It’s awesome,” Mills said of coming back Some of the upperclassmen on the team to coach her home team. “It’s always good to have been playing together for years, come back and see your hometown and home long before they put on an Aggie team and just see how much it’s grown just in jersey, and it shows in the on-field the five, six years I’ve been gone.” product. Mills was part of the coaching staff that led to “You know when somebody the Aggies winning the Division 1-3A champi- is throwing this pitch, and beonship during the 2021 season, and now, knee cause of that you get a sense of deep in division play once again, is excited to where the ball’s going to go so have the exact same roster as last year with a you can set up. You just learn few extra pieces. their abilities and tendencies KHS had no seniors last season, meaning that much sooner,” Mills added. every single member of the division champiThat talent has aided in the onship winning team has come back for more, Aggies’ ability to deal with and Mills and the rest of the team were excited the fierce amount of competito hit the ground running. tion within their division, and “We’re just building off what we had from last with the youth the squad has, year and getting better. I mean, it’s big getting they’re not done yet. to have those kids (back) with Brandon Bobo The 2021 3A state champion (current head coach) in his first year. But with came out of the same division, and By TANNER MARLAR
For Crossroads Magazine
2021-22 Sports Rewind Edition
CROSSROADS MAGAZINE
it wasn’t the Aggies. It was rival Booneville. This year, they’re out to take what they believe is theirs. “They’ve got some payback coming,” Mills said of the rest of division 1-3A. The Aggies softball team is hungry. They want to join that upper echelon of women’s sports in Alcorn County, and they know they have the right mix of youth, experience and talent to get the job done. Their quest for a state title began last year, and in 2022, if softball fans were to ask them, they’ve got plenty of unfinished business in which to attend.
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