Thirty teams rolled into Myrtle Beach in early July looking to win the Myrtle Beach Youth Softball Nationals.

The Montgomery Devils Red 14U team didn’t win the tournament, but they came closer than any Devils team since 2006 when they finished second out of 30 teams, after posting an 8-1 record.

They lost the championship game, 10-2, on July 13 to the Texas Express Gold, earning their runner-up status.

“I thought our experience at Nationals was great,” Samantha Maleck said. “We only had nine players for four days, so it was very hard, but we all came together as a team and worked through it.”

When attending Nationals, teams are expected to play a minimum of six games in five days of Pool Play. The Devils advanced to the single elimination portion and played the maximum of 10 games.

They entered the tournament as the sixth seed and weren’t intimidated by the big stage.

“We’ve been down there the two years previous,” Devils coach Vincent Castro said.

The Devils opened the tournament on July 8 with two wins. They started by beating the Stars Calamita, 8-0, and followed that with a 6-5 win over the Rhode Island Thunder.

They beat The North Georgia Force, 4-3, to open play on July 9 before suffering what would have been their only Pool Play loss to the Pennsylvania Crossfire, 9-2.

However, the Crossfire’s win was vacated when they were disqualified for not providing birth certificates.

The Devils finished Pool Play on Monday with a 7-5 win over the Five Star Lady Mafia-Christian on July 10.

After an off day on July 11, the Devils returned to the field for Bracket Play. They beat the Smash It Sports Jr. Vipers, 6-1, and posted a 5-3 win over the Cannons to end the day.

Thursday became the longest day of the tournament. They opened the day with a quarterfinal win over the CO American Freedom, 6-4, and then beat the Chatham Lady Reds, 7-5, in the semifinals.

That set up their meeting with The Texas Express. Despite not winning the championship games, the girls showed perspective on what they’ve done.

“It was actually a really good feeling,” outfielder Parker Mullarkey said. “Even though we didn’t come out in first, I feel like we all pushed through really hard, and I’m happy that we got this experience.”

The one experience they could have done without was the South Carolina heat.

Mullarkey called it “brutal,” while Addison Freiberger said it was so hot that even if you felt like you wanted to throw up, you couldn’t.

It took its toll on a small roster.

“A few of our girls got very hot and by the end of the day, they were spent,” Maleck said. “We only had two catchers so there wasn’t much to work with, but we all know it was important to each other that we do well and achieve our goals, so we all had to fight for each other.”

The Devils have been together for about five years, originally starting with nine, which doesn’t leave much room in the event someone gets hurt. The players come from areas within and around Montgomery like Pine Bush, Newburgh and Marlboro.

It’s a team built on speed from Mullarkey, Freiberger and Torre. Maleck is the team’s top pitcher. When other coaches talk to Castro about his team, the speed is what they mention.

“Things will slump, but speed does not,” Castro said, “other teams have said to us, ‘we know you guys were solid, we knew you were strong hitting, but it was your speed that scared us the most.’”

Nationals was the end of the summer team and now the Devils are rolling into tryouts for the fall season. They’re also looking at the options for next year. Do they return to Myrtle Beach, or do they try one of the other national tournaments to see different competition.

“Our goal every year is to find different teams,” Castro said. “We don’t want to play against the same teams. We want to challenge ourselves. If that means, that we’ve got to travel a little bit the parents are on board and the kids are on board.”