To wrap up preseason play, Durant and Plant City baseball faced off in a contest that featured two of the state’s top junior pitchers in Durant’s Blaine Rowland and Plant City’s Chase Mobley.
The contest was the week’s final installment of an annual round-robin style preseason classic featuring the two Plant City high schools, along with Bloomingdale. While the Raiders fell to the Bulls by way a 5-0 final on Monday, the Cougars entered the evening fresh off of a 3-0 win over Bloomingdale on Tuesday. And with local bragging rights on the line and two juggernaut arms on the mound, the preseason matchup carried the energy of a dramatic district championship as Durant won 4-3 in walkoff fashion.
With Durant the home team on Wednesday, Rowland took the mound first. A Florida commit that stands 6-foot-3, he features a fastball that regularly sits in the high-80’s to low-90’s, complimented by a dangerous array of offspeed pitches. After falling behind 3-1 to the first batter he faced, Rowland forced a fly out to center, followed by a quick ground out and another fly out to center to easily work through the top of the first.
As Durant prepared for their first at bats, Mobley took the mound. A towering 6-foot-5 Florida State commit, the 16 year old righty commands a power fastball with exceptionally rare velocity at the high school level, regularly sitting in the mid-90’s while topping out at 99 miles per hour. Behind the heater, Mobley’s offspeed dips into the high-70’s to mid-80’s with a sinker in his back pocket that can also climb into the mid-90’s. After coaxing a two-strike groundout from Durant’s Nick April-Gath, Mobley notched back-to-back strikeouts to end the frame, one looking and one swinging.
Back on the mound for the top of the second, Rowland was in control. After two quick strikeouts, he began to flash his stellar four-pitch mix as he notched his third strikeout of the inning on a sharp 2-2 slider outside. In the bottom of the inning, Mobley remained perfect as well as he got out in front of Durant’s cleanup hitter Noah Morales before the power-hitting junior rolled over the two-strike pitch for the first out. He added another strikeout on an elevated fastball and got the third out with a one-pitch groundout to second.
Plant City opened the third with the first baserunner of the contest for either side as senior Zane Wright fell behind 1-2 in the count before ripping a double down the left field line. But Rowland remained composed as he forced the next two hitters to chase for strikeouts on breaking balls in the dirt and ended the threat with his third strikeout of the inning on just three pitches one batter later. And in the bottom of the frame, Durant put their first runner aboard as well. After yet another strikeout to begin the frame, junior outfielder Tyler MacPherson punched a single up the middle and eventually moved up to second on a passed ball, but two flyouts would end the Cougars’ scoring opportunity.
Each pitcher would tack on two more strikeouts in the fourth as their pair of scoreless outings would come to an end, looking every bit as dominant as advertised as both teams turned to their bullpens heading into the fifth.
Mobley finished the evening with zero earned runs, zero walks, two hits allowed and six strikeouts while Rowland’s final line featured zero earned runs, zero walks, one hit allowed and eight strikeouts.
A scoreless frame from Durant junior Gehrig Graham and Plant City senior Logan Figga moved the game to the sixth where Plant City broke through with their first run of the preseason. After a one-out single from senior Deven Gonzalez — moving up to second with a two-out stolen base — Durant appeared to be out of the jam as senior Anthony Palestrini rolled over a slow roller to short, but the ensuing throw pulled the first baseman off the bag and Gonzalez was able to score from second to give the Raiders a 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the inning, Durant punched back, starting with a leadoff single from junior Devin Suero. At the conclusion of a five-pitch walk to April-Gath the next at bat, the fourth ball got away to the backstop allowing Suero to advance to third and give the Cougars runners on first and third with no outs. Aidan Welsh grounded into a fielder’s choice in the next at bat, but beat out the throw to first as he reached safely and drove in the game-tying run. Welsh then advanced to second on a passed ball and a strikeout left the Raiders just one out away from limiting the damage to one run, but a two-out double down the line from Morales drove home the go-ahead run and put Durant up 2-1 heading into the seventh.
Down to their last chance, Plant City immediately loaded the bases with no outs as senior Landen Robert was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, followed by base hits from senior Adan Longoria and Wright. With Durant’s infield playing in, senior Wyatt Fordham ripped a grounder to second that was corralled with a sliding stop, but the throw home to try and get the force out was not in time as the tying run scored. Next up was senior Tanner Rollyson, hitting another hard ground ball that couldn’t be fielded cleanly as a third run came across to score and all runners were safe, giving Plant City a 3-2 lead. But despite a bases loaded opportunity and no outs on the board, Durant was able to keep the deficit at one with a fielder’s choice, a fly out and a strikeout from the next three hitters.
And in the bottom of the seventh Durant found a bit of magic. After a leadoff ground out, sophomore Brantley Howard reached base with a walk, putting the potential tying run on first as he was replaced for a pinch runner in sophomore Brody Lissy. Next up, MacPherson hit a hard grounder that had the makings of a game-ending double play, but the throw to second was sent high and into the left field gap where Lissy came all the way around to score as MacPherson made it to third. And in the span of seconds, Plant City’s late lead evaporated into a losing effort as a passed ball rolled to the backstop on the first pitch of the following at bat, allowing MacPherson to score from third and seal the 4-3 preseason walkoff victory for the Cougars.
“These guys never stopped the fight, which is nice,” Durant head coach Butch Valdes said. “We’ve got a special group this year. Every year I say that we’ve got a special group and the term is that we’re never rebuilding, we reload, and that’s what we did. We reloaded. The kids that we have here are fitting in great, we’ve got some transfers that have done a heck of a job of just blending into the family. We always know that it’s going to be tough with Plant City and with Bloomingdale and all of them but the guys fought through the whole thing, they never stop. There’s a ton of energy in these games and you know that there’s always bragging rights around here, especially with Plant City, and I know that it’s just preseason, it is what it is — they only went about 50 or so pitches with Mobley, we did the same with Blaine — but it’s going to be like that all the time. It’s going to be a dogfight and whoever can make the fewest mistakes wins usually.”
Plant City and Durant both opened their regular seasons on Tuesday, with Plant City moving to 1-0 with a 7-4 over Freedom and Durant falling to 0-1 with a 4-2 loss against Plant.