Surrounded by her family, coaches and teammates Roanoke Rapids Yellow Jackets senior softball player Breanna Allen stepped up her love for softball one more step Tuesday afternoon in the Roanoke Rapids High School media center.
Allen signed here National Letter of intent to play college softball as a Tornado at Brevard College.
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Allen started playing T ball at age 6 in Roanoke Rapids and quickly moved through the girls fast-pitch Roanoke Valley Girls Softball league with Babe Ruth where she enjoyed many years and many All Star teams.
Allen joined her first travel team at age 9 based here in Roanoke Rapids and since has moved around locally and then branched out to teams based out of towns such as Tarboro.
At the age of 14, Allen played for her first showcase team, the Carolina Mash based in Oxford. The Showcase teams primarily are the strongest travel teams that play the game and not for championships but in front of college coaches to “showcase” their talents. From there she moved to Nationally recognized organizations in Smithfield, the Carolina Flames Elite Showcase, and then on to the Carolina Elite Showcase based in Williamston. She currently plays for the Lady Lightning East Select Showcase based out of Clinton.
With these showcase teams she has had the privilege to play ball all over the east coast such as Virginia Beach, Roanoke VA, Spartanburg SC, Myrtle Beach SC, Chattanooga TN, Atlanta GA, and Orlando FL just to name a few.
Over the past couple of years Allen has attended over 16 college prospect camps in three states and taken professional pitching lessons since she was 11 and professional hitting lessons for the past 4 years from various instructors.
Breanna never targeted large schools as she decided early on she wanted the small school experience and has had over 10 college offers in some six states to play ball with the majority of those being smaller D3 schools with a few D2 schools and one small D1 school wanting her to join their ranks. Ultimately she decided on Brevard for its academics, beautiful scenery, unique teaching philosophy, small classes, and small town atmosphere in the foothills of western North Carolina mountains. Of course they have the famous white squirrels to boot!
Brevard was a Division 2 school when they first offered to her, but the school has since chosen to drop to Division 3. This did not deter Breanna as she loved the area, the coach, and wants to help in the building up of that program.
Allen hopes to be pitching and playing the corners for the Tornados and plans on majoring in Health Science Studies.
At Roanoke Rapids high Breanna earned the Newcomer of the Year award as a freshman finishing the season with the second highest batting average on the team. As a junior, she was Offensive Player of the Year leading the team in batting average as well as other offensive categories and also earning All-Conference. As a Senior she hopes to lead her team in the circle and do her job at the plate. She has accomplished all this while keeping up with her schoolwork and being inducted into the National Honor Society as well as Spanish National Honor Society.
"Allen has sacrificed many things and many events with friends and family to work on her game or studies," stated her father Shane Allen.
Allen has played several other sports in school along the way such as volleyball, basketball, and golf but decided to forego those in her upperclassman years to focus on her true love of softball and keeping her studies up.
Roanoke Rapids High head softball coach Steve Milligan stated, "Today is a special day for Breanna and her family and honored he is for her to continue her love of the game on the next level and I am proud of you." Coach Milligan also stated, "I challenge you to fulfill your obligation to your high school and your underclassmen teammates in your senior year as a Lady yellow Jacket."
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