Plant City baseball opened up preseason play against the Bloomingdale Bulls on Monday, falling 5-0 in another installment of the area’s annual round robin preseason play featuring three local teams in Plant City, Durant and Bloomingdale.
“We are a very good team, even if we didn’t show it tonight yet,” Plant City head coach Mike Fryrear said. “Obviously we’ve got some new guys playing some new positions and we’ve got a catching situation. We put a guy back there that hasn’t caught since little league and he’s worked hard but we tried to make him a catcher in a week and it doesn’t happen like that, but I saw a lot of good things with our team too. They don’t give up, we just didn’t have any timely hitting, we didn’t play small ball and I was even rusty as a coach. it’s been a year since I’ve coached my last game. With that being said we’ll get back to the drawing board tomorrow, we’ll try and fix what we can fix, the accountability of getting guys in and being unselfish at the plate, trying to move guys over and bunting more, but we’ve got a really good team and I think there’s going to be something special with this team. “
And as is typically the case for preseason play, it was an opportunity for the Raiders’ offense to get geared up against live pitching while fans in the stands got to see one of Plant City’s talented starting arms in Adan Longoria, a senior USF signee.
With the Raiders the acting home team, Longoria took the mound to open the top of the first where he was extremely strong to start the contest, freezing his first hitter on an outside fastball to get the strike out looking before striking out the side as he baited two more swinging strikeouts on elevated fastballs to work through the top half of the frame without issue.
After the Raiders hitters went down in order in the bottom of the first, Longoria opened the second with his fourth consecutive strikeout to begin the game. With a deep flyout to left and a line out to left, Longoria left the mound still perfect through two frames.
The Raiders were held without a hit again in the bottom of the second and Longoria picked right back up where he left off in the third. After a four-pitch strikeout, ending the at bat with an off-speed pitch low in the zone that drew an unsuccessful swing, he fell behind in a 3-1 count to the next hitter. A pair of foul balls left the count full before he got a strikeout looking on a changeup, followed by another strikeout looking to end the frame. Through three, Longoria was perfect without surrendering a hit or a walk while striking out the side twice on seven total strikeouts.
In the bottom of the third, Plant City’s offense posed their strongest threat of the night. After a leadoff walk from Wellington Hehn, a double play ball quickly took the Raiders’ first baserunner of the night off the field, but back-to-back-to-back base knocks from senior Wyatt Forham, senior Deven Gonzalez and junior Colin Pellicer instantly put the pressure on Bloomingdale again with a bases loaded, two-out opportunity. But a flyout on one pitch the next at bat ended the threat. And in the top of the fourth, Bloomingdale broke through. A walk followed by a hit batter gave the Bulls runners on first and second. A double steal attempt led to a throwing error, allowing the first run of the contest to cross the plate while Bloomingdale’s trail runner moved up to third. A groundout to third allowed the second run to score and Longoria would eventually work out of the inning to limit the damage to a 2-0 deficit.
In the top of the fifth, a leadoff single and a bunt single with a strikeout in between ended the night for Longoria as relief pitcher Tanner Rollyson — a senior that recently signed with Florida Southern — entered the game. A pair of passed balls initially allowed runners to advance to second and third, then allowed the Bulls’ third run to come across and the trail runner to advance to third, but Rollyson was able to escape the jam with just one unearned run coming home.
The Bulls tacked on two more runs in the sixth and the Raiders were held scoreless in the contest as they fell 5-0.
There are some growing pains with the Raiders’ lineup, something that’s expected with the nature of high school ball where seniors are always graduating and guys are forced to step up, but those growing pains become more evident when you lose some of the massive power that Plant City lost in now-departed sluggers Colin Shultz and Jackson VanDerZee, two seniors last year that led the team in batting average at .378 and .362 respectively, also combining for 13 home runs and 41 runs batted in.
“As far as replacing those guys, you’ll never replace them,” Fryrear said. “We just have to be a different kind of team this year. We’ll be a pitching-loaded team obviously, and defense has to be our key.”
But despite the loss, Plant City immediately began preparing for a matchup with Durant on Wednesday where two of Florida’s top pitchers for the class of 2024, Plant City’s Chase Mobley and Durant’s Blaine Rowland, faced off. Florida State and Florida commits respectively, the two aces pitched together throughout little league before joining rival high schools a few years ago and will surely catch eyes from across the nation throughout this spring and next.
While Durant and Plant City played their preseason contest on Wednesday, the game was played after to the Plant City Observer had gone to press. Further coverage will be provided.