Some of the best sports action in eastern Hillsborough County can be found at a nearby softball diamond.
The 2016 high school season is set to start shortly, and Plant City-area teams are looking to shake things up around the scene — as usual. This year, Durant and Strawberry Crest will look to take the district crown away from Plant City, the 2015 champion.
DURANT
Last year wasn’t much for the Lady Cougars to write home about.
Durant posted a 7-17 record (5-5 district), which included a streak of eight consecutive losses from March 26 to April 7 — four of them in Bartow High’s two-day tournament.
A win during the district tournament — a 10-0 thrashing of Tampa Bay Tech on April 14 — set up a date with Plant City in the semifinals. Although the Lady Cougars were not able to beat Strawberry Crest, they were able to get a 5-4 win in eight innings over the Lady Raiders on March 3. That gave area fans hope.
Facing a 9-2 deficit in the sixth inning, Durant was able to score three runs in the final two frames. It wasn’t enough to get past the Lady Raiders, who rode momentum from that 9-5 win to the district title, but Durant could say it didn’t go down without a fight.
The good news for Durant is that the majority of its offensive production will return this year.
That includes seniors Madison Farrell and Selena Bezares, two of the area’s best players in the 2015 season. Farrell was the team’s leader in just about every offensive category: she boasted a .506 batting average, 40 hits, 28 runs batted in, 26 runs scored, 11 doubles, six home runs and one triple. Bezares was right behind her, batting .420 with 34 hits, 27 RBI, 21 runs scored, eight doubles, six homers and a triple. Also returning are .379 hitter Traile Robbins and .321 hitter Bayli Johns.
Durant’s biggest area for improvement will rest with its pitching staff. None of the Lady Cougars’ starters posted a winning record in 2015 and none had more than Sloan Hammons’ 45 strikeouts. Hammons and fellow junior Amanda Lasky will look to break free from their sophomore slumps and, at least in Hammons’ case, recapture that 2014 mojo that helped Durant win the district.
PLANT CITY
Throughout 2015, Plant City’s program got pretty much everything it could have asked for.
Solid team chemistry? Check. Impact player development? Check. New coach? Check. District championship? Check. The Lady Raiders’ regular-season record might have been just a shade over .500, at 14-11, but their play at the end of the season showed that this team could be primed for big things.
Ashley Bullion — the team’s fourth head coach in as many years — guided Plant City to six wins in its final seven regular-season games, outscoring opponents 69-13. The Lady Raiders then dominated the district tournament, ending with a 7-1 rout of East Bay in the championship game.
A 6-4 win over Wiregrass Ranch took the team to the regional semifinals, where it fell to Steinbrenner in a 3-1 loss.
Perhaps most importantly, Bullion is back. That gives Plant City the consistent leadership it’s lacked for as long as some of her players had been in school.
Plant City’s also getting its breakout star back. Junior catcher Edmilly Molina had arguably the best season of any player in Plant City, if not East Hillsborough. She posted a .512 batting average with 44 hits, 33 RBI, 31 runs scored, nine stolen bases, seven doubles, six triples and two homers.
Of the batters with more than 15 games played, four of the six that batted over .300 are coming back.
As with Durant, the Lady Raiders’ question mark is with its pitching. Noelle Dietrich pitched more than twice as many innings as second option Alexis Williams. Although she was never a strikeout machine, she went 12-8 in her 22 starts and pitched 13 complete games.
Williams, now a senior, appears to be the one to take over Dietrich’s workload. Although Williams’ 2015 sample size is smaller than Dietrich’s, the two posted similar averages, and Williams only had four fewer strikeouts (55, to Dietrich’s 59).
STRAWBERRY CREST
Crest finished with the best win percentage.
The Lady Chargers went 15-7 (8-2 district) in the regular season and was the only team to not lose double-digit games. Like Plant City, they also ended the season on a hot streak: Crest outscored opponents, 77-13, while winning the final nine games of the regular season. The team also got aggressive on the basepaths, adding 52 total steals to its .434 on-base percentage.
So many area fans were surprised when, in the first round of districts, Crest was on the losing end of a 7-4 score against runner-up East Bay. Just when it looked like Crest was mounting a comeback — it had scored three runs in the fifth inning and held East Bay scoreless after the fourth — luck just wasn’t on its side.
This year, Scottie Todd, now a senior, is coming off of a solid junior season that saw her post a 1.79 ERA with a 13-8 record, plus a team-high 94 strikeouts. She also wasn’t half-bad at the plate, batting .311 in 52 plate appearances.
Senior Kaylan Kelly batted .373 last season, with a team-high 22 hits and 13 RBI, and looks to be one of the leaders on offense in 2016. Sophomore Kiersten Salley is also one to watch, as she made the most out of her limited time at the plate: Salley hit .476 with 13 runs, 10 hits, nine RBI and the team’s only home run of the year in 21 at-bats. And senior Rebecca Roberts, who only got to play in seven games last season, will look to get back to form: she hit .562 with 11 RBI (second-most on the team) in her 16 at-bats.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.