On the heels of a Final Four appearance last year, Durant opened their preseason play against the defending 6A State Champions Bloomingdale this week in the Plant City High School Baseball Preseason Classic, a round-robin style series that features Durant, Bloomingdale and Plant City.
In a star-studded preseason classic, the three teams boast six combined FHSAA Final Four appearances over the past eight years and recent state championships from Plant City in 2019 and Bloomingdale in 2021.
Durant enters the season with high hopes despite the loss of 14 graduating seniors last year, most notably starting pitcher Sean Hermann, a 13th round selection by the Yankees in the 2021 MLB Draft. With a huge amount of production both on the mound and at the plate not returning, the Cougars will rely on a lot of new faces to uphold the standard.
To make things tougher for the Cougars, they will start their season without one of their projected starting pitchers Blaine Rowland – a sophomore that’s currently committed to the University of Florida – due to a broken arm.
“Some guys have to step up,” head coach Butch Valdes said about shaking up the starting rotation. “We’re going to test everybody out and see who’s going to step up and perform.”
In Rowland’s absence, senior transfer Torin Byrnes got the start for Durant. Byrnes was able to hold Bloomingdale scoreless through the first two innings and the Cougars opened the scoring in the bottom of the second with a solo home run to lead off the inning from sophomore Carlos Morales.
Morales was a regular contributor as a freshman last season, totaling 15 hits, nine runs batted in, four doubles, a triple and a .254 batting average across 67 plate appearances.
Bloomingdale knotted the game up at 1-1 in the top of the third, with the leadoff runner reaching on a two-base error before a bunt pushed him to third and a double down the right field line drove him home.
Durant senior Avery Cherry opened the bottom half of the frame with a walk, moving to second on a sacrifice bunt and eventually over to third with a stolen bag. After a hit batter, Byrnes helped his own cause with a two-out single back up the middle to drive home the go-ahead run from third. A single from sophomore Nick April-Gath drove home one more and the Cougars went into the fourth inning with a 3-1 lead.
In the fourth, Bloomingdale broke the game open with a six-run inning and would go on to push at least one run across in every inning that followed. After a single to lead off the frame, a blooper into left and a ground ball up the middle that wasn’t fielded cleanly loaded the bases with no outs. A single to left scored one run, a throwing error on the next play allowed two more runs to come across and in the blink of an eye, Bloomingdale was on top 4-3. Bloomingdale scored another run on a fielder’s choice and Byrnes’ night was done as Durant made a move to the bullpen.
Despite the final line, Byrnes worked through adversity for a solid preseason outing overall.
“I saw his composure, he kept it even though I know the frustration was building up inside,” Valdes said. “You see the opportunities to make plays but it is what it is. He got the outs that he was supposed to, he got the ground balls and the fly balls and they didn’t produce behind him but he kept his composure which was solid. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”
After loading the bases again on an intentional walk, an infield single scored two more. Durant eventually got out of the jam with a double play, but not before falling behind 7-3.
Bloomingdale tacked on another run in the top of the fifth and Durant answered back in the bottom of the inning. A leadoff single followed by a double from Morales led to two more runs for the Cougars and they entered the sixth trailing 8-5.
With one run in the sixth and two more in the seventh, Bloomingdale eventually worked their way out to an 11-5 lead. And in the bottom of the final frame Durant added one final run on another RBI single from April-Gath, but ultimately fell 11-6 in their preseason opener.
“You lose your number one pitcher to an injury, that hurts, but it also takes a bat out of the lineup,” Valdes said. “Then you give up seven or eight errors in a game and it’s just hard to come back, especially against a team like Bloomingdale. You can’t give up two errors against a team like Bloomingdale, much less seven or eight. The positive is, we got some bats on the ball. We scored some runs on [Bloomingdale pitcher Jack Owens] and that’s a big plus for us. There’s some positives in there but we’ve just got to clean up our mess, get back at it and see what we can do Wednesday.”
Bloomingdale ended their preseason play undefeated with a 9-4 victory over Plant City on Tuesday night and Durant returned to action with a game against the Raiders on Wednesday night.
While Durant and Plant City played their game before publishing, the contest came after the Plant City Observer had gone to press on Wednesday evening. Continued coverage will be provided.