Maddie Saven: Proving doubters wrong one swing at a time

As the only girl on her high school baseball team, sophomore Maddie Saven is here to prove everyone wrong.

Out in South Florida on the Plantation High School baseball diamond you’ll find 5’4″ Maddie Saven standing out on second base, waiting for a ground ball to come her way. To opposing teams it might be out of the ordinary seeing a girl on the boys baseball team, but Saven doesn’t care. Whatever ideas they have about a girl playing baseball she’ll change their minds on the field.

Since the age of nine Saven has always played baseball, when her now personal coach Josias “Manzy” Manzanillo witnessed her talents at a baseball camp in Florida.

“I met her at the age of nine I put a camp together and she came on board and I noticed that she stands out among the kids,” Manzanillo said. “I was like ‘there’s something different here, she’s special.'”

Saven started playing baseball partially because her older brother Nicholas Saven — who is now a manager on the Stetson University baseball team — played growing up, but mainly because she fell in love with it. With the support of her parents backing up her dreams along the way Saven progressed through the ranks and is now the co-captain on her high school team.

“She played baseball at a young age with boys against the odds of coaches and other players and she’s had two parents to support and encourage her to do what she wants to do,” said Kelly Saven. “A lot of parents would’ve forced their kid to play softball but that’s not what she wanted to do. She should be able to do what she wants to do regardless of the gender of the sport.”

It wasn’t an easy road, of course there have been naysayers along the way, but every time Saven takes the field, whether she’s on the mound pitching, on second base or at the plate getting ready to hit, she silences her doubters.

In her second year on the varsity squad Saven is hitting .280 on the season with 8 RBI’s and 4 stolen bases, and on the mound she’s 1-0 through 12 innings of action with a 0.58 ERA.

“She plays with a chip on her shoulder, she knows that she has to play up based on the fact that she’s a girl,” said head coach Manny Aguilar. “She knows that there will always be boys bigger and stronger than her.”

Saven knows that the position she’s in is abnormal, being the only girl on her baseball team, but she trains 24/7, is usually the first one at practice and the last to leave determined to show that she earned her spot.

“I’m not going to give up until I hang my cleats up,” Saven said. “I’m just going to keep going and push myself. I don’t really care what other people think, just what I feel about myself. That’s what makes me who I am.”