Do you have a sports scoop for us? Email Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
Five Chargers make swim states
The Strawberry Crest Chargers kept up their good work at the FHSAA regional finals Nov. 4 and have their eyes on the next prize.
Celi Guzman, Zane Richardson, Robert Haywood, Bryce McCool and Abdiel Rosario have advanced to the 4A state championship tournament, which will take place all day today at Sailfish Splashpark Aquatic Athletics Center, 931 S.E. Ruhnke St., Stuart. Swimming preliminaries begin at 9 a.m. and finals will start at 5:30 p.m. A live online broadcast of the event can be viewed at NFHSNetwork.com.
Register for youth basketball
The 49th annual Plant City Recreation and Parks Department/Optimist Youth Basketball season begins in early January and registration is now underway.
To join the league, which has divisions for boys, girls and co-ed teams, youths must be between age 8 and 16 as of March 1, 2018. The divisions for 2018 are co-ed 8-9, boys 10-11, girls 10-12, boys 12-13, girls 13-15 and boys 14-16. The season runs from January through late February and games are played at the Plant City Family YMCA, Marshall and Tomlin middle schools. The 8 and 9 year olds will mostly play on Saturdays and older age groups will mostly play on weeknights. The department is also looking for coaches for the league.
Registration costs $35 per person, which covers insurance, jersey and other league expenses. Birth certificates are required to provide proof of age. Register on-site or mail the form and payment to the Plant City Recreation and Parks Department administrative office, 1904 S. Park Road, by 4:30 p.m. Nov. 15. The form may be downloaded and printed from PlantCityGov.com. For more information, call 813-659-4255 or email RecInfo@plantcitygov.com.
Meet PCHS winter teams
Plant City High School is teaming up with the Improvement League of Plant City, Raider Champions and Safe and Sound of Hillsborough for “Meet the Winter Teams Night.”
From 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, people can visit the PCHS gymnasium to meet and greet the school’s basketball and soccer players, wrestlers and competitive cheerleaders. Coaches will speak about their programs and the teams will run some drills for the audience.
The intent of the free event, according to the groups, is to “help bridge the gap between the youth sports programs and high school varsity sports as well as to cast a vision of being responsible citizens by mentoring to our younger generation.”
