It’s been a good year for many of our area’s prep baseball and softball teams, but the 2014 season has come to a close in both sports. There were plenty of pleasant surprises along the way, and there will be plenty for these teams to look forward to in the future.
So, what happened this season?
BASEBALL
DURANT COUGARS
The 2013 State Championship runners-up might have been under-valued at the beginning of the season, thanks to the void left when star player Tyler Danish graduated.
Counting them out of another playoff appearance, though, was a mistake.
Durant (18-7; 8-2 district) got off to a hot start, scoring 36 runs and allowing three in its first four games. After cooling off for a bit, they got hot again in late March and early April. The district race was very tight, but the Cougars came out on top of a 1-0 thriller with Brandon. That put them back in regionals with home-field advantage, but it didn’t matter in the end: Sickles rallied late, and successfully, to knock Durant out in the first round.
Garrett Wright’s team-best .418 and 33 hits stick out, as do the numbers for fellow seniors Paxton Sims (.351, team-best 23 runs and eight doubles) and Luke Heyer (.268, team-best 20 RBI and two homers). Sophomore Jake Sullivan and freshman Jonah Scolaro also established themselves as players to watch in the future: Sullivan batted .372 with 14 RBI and two doubles, and Scolaro hit .354 with 18 runs, 15 RBI and the team’s only other home run.
STRAWBERRY CREST CHARGERS
Posting a .500 record (4-4) in the first month of the season wasn’t a good look for Strawberry Crest (18-10; 7-3 district), but it didn’t take long for the team to find itself in March.
Thanks to a good March, and a 6-1 district record from Feb. 28 onward, the Chargers were able to get to a decent position for the district playoffs and handle Tampa Bay Tech, 4-2.
Oddly enough, Crest completed a regular-season sweep of Durant with a 10-2 blowout win on April Fools’ Day; Brandon, however, swept the Chargers in the regular season and also knocked them out of the district tournament with a 2-0 win. Baseball is a funny game, sometimes.
Juniors Jake Ralyea and Jeffrey Murray led this Chargers team at the plate, as Ralyea batted .333 with 14 RBI, 12 runs and five doubles, and Murray hit .312 with 18 runs, 11 RBI and three doubles. Both players also hit one home run.
But, the team’s most well-rounded performer this season may have been Mark Moclair. The junior did pretty well at the plate, sporting a .290 average with 17 RBI and five doubles, but he really shined on the mound: he threw two full no-hitters this season and, in the first three innings against Middleton on March 8, left the game with nine strikeouts, no hits and no runs.
PLANT CITY RAIDERS
Like Durant, Plant City (12-13; 5-5 district) had to deal with the loss of its best player, pitcher Kevin Long, to graduation. The rest of the team returned in February, though, to a new look and a new field.
The Raiders’ 2014 record was nearly identical to its 2013 record (12-13, 5-5 in 2014; 13-13-1, 5-5 in 2013). They did, however, come out on top of the most lopsided score in recent memory: a 28-1 win over Middleton. Most notably, the Raiders got their first win of the season in a 2-1 extra-innings thriller with Tampa powerhouse Plant High School.
Connor Slagill had a great year offensively, finishing with a .444 average, 17 runs and RBI, four doubles, three triples, and three dingers. A couple of young guns, freshman Dalton Wingo and sophomore Peyton Collins, also stepped up: Wingo batted .343 with 17 runs and four doubles, and stole 12 bases on 12 attempts; Collins, meanwhile, hit .316 with 16 runs and 10 RBI, and stole 15 bases on 16 tries.
On the mound, sophomore Ryan Boyd was pleasant surprise. Boyd, a Durant transfer, threw two complete-game no-hitters in the first five starts of his career: one in a 10-0 win over Tampa Bay Tech, and one in a 7-0 win over East Bay. His 69 strikeouts were also the most by any pitcher of the three area schools.
SOFTBALL
DURANT LADY CHARGERS
The 2014 Lady Cougars (20-9; 6-4 district) made it a little further in the playoff bracket than the 2013 squad did, despite faring worse in district play during the regular season.
Although Durant fared well outside of Class 7A-7 play, going 14-5, those four losses in the district cast it as a lower seed for the tournament than the girls probably wanted to be. What really dragged the Lady Cougars down were their performances against Strawberry Crest and Plant City: four games, four losses.
Then, they got into the district tournament. After abusing Tampa Bay Tech in the first round, 15-0, they had to take on the Lady Chargers. Surprisingly, the Lady Cougars dominated most of the game and left Brandon High School with a 10-6 win and a championship berth. When they got to that final game, against Plant City, they dropped an even bigger surprise on the crowd: Durant turned into a five-inning, 11-0 slobber-knocker to win.
They won the regional semifinal rematch with the Lady Raiders, 5-2, one step further than the 2013 team.
Senior leadership guided this team, though one of them — Shannon Bell — turned in one of the best offensive performances of any player in the area. While batting .368 in 95 at-bats, Bell ended with 45 RBI, 28 runs, 11 doubles, six homers and two triples. On the mound, freshman Sloan Hammons stunned batters with 141 strikeouts – the most of any area pitcher.
STRAWBERRY CREST LADY CHARGERS
No one started the season with higher expectations than Strawberry Crest (20-6; 9-1 district). And, for a while, it looked like the Lady Chargers would have no trouble meeting them.
Half of their losses came in one three-game streak, at the Bartow Tournament of Champions. The other two regular season losses came in mid-February, to Bloomingdale, and late March, to Plant City. Other than that, they generally showed no mercy: only two of their wins (Wharton, Durant) came with a difference of less than three runs.
They earned a first-round bye in the district tournament and drew Durant in the semifinal. On that day, though, they couldn’t overcome Hammons on the mound and Bell, Brooke Freeman, Selena Bezares and company at the plate.
Almost all of their top performers were seniors, and two of them — Mia Fung and Cacey Simmons — were the only batters in the area to match Bell’s output. Fung batted .440 with 38 runs, 19 RBI, 11 doubles, five homers and three triples. Simmons batted an even .500 with 29 RBI, 28 hits, nine triples, five doubles and three home runs.
No one in the area hit more homers than senior Megan Reed, who finished with nine while batting .329. Workhorse pitcher Sammy Tyler struck out 139 of 411 batters faced, and gave up only 19 earned runs all year.
PLANT CITY LADY RAIDERS
The Lady Raiders (20-7; 9-1 district) went through a coaching change in the offseason, with Maggie Fiex taking the reins, but actually improved upon their 2013 record.
Of course, there was a slight adjustment period at the beginning of the season that saw the team start with a 4-3 record. After that, though, the Lady Raiders started rolling: after a Feb. 25 loss to Strawberry Crest, Plant City didn’t lose a single district matchup. Nor did they lose many other games — going on a 15-2 run to close the regular season.
This allowed the Lady Raiders to lock up one of the district’s top seeds and a first-round bye, but they got more than bargained for with a scrappy East Bay squad in the semifinal game and a suddenly-hot Durant team in the championship.
They still advanced to the regional playoffs, where they picked up a 3-1 win over Gaither in the first round before losing to the Lady Cougars again.
Plant City’s only seniors, Emily Register and Kacie Booth provided solid leadership and contributed well all season. Register hit .458 with 25 runs, 22 RBI and eight doubles, while Booth hit .403 with 22 runs, 21 RBI and six doubles.
Junior ace Noelle Dietrich, who racked up 14 wins against three losses, was arguably better at inducing groundouts and fly-outs than any pitcher in the area. She also finished the season with four shutouts in nine complete games.
Sophomore Rebecca Sorenson and freshman Edmilly Molina were also team leaders on offense, as Sorenson led the team with 28 runs and 23 RBI, and Molina batted .415.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
SIX SENIORS’ LAST HURRAH
Durant’s softball team, led by six seniors left from the 2012 State Championship squad, made it all the way to the regional finals in 2014 — this time facing a 26-2 Harmony squad with no home losses. Freshman Sloan Hammons took the mound for the Lady Cougars, striking out eight while allowing only one earned run, but it wasn’t enough. Harmony used a three-run fifth inning to its advantage, and held on for the 3-0 win.