As the last Plant City area team standing after a district championship and a strong run through the regional tournament, the Chargers met their match at Sickles.
With district tournaments in the rearview mirror, regional tournament action began for both the softball and baseball teams from Durant and Strawberry Crest last week.
On Thursday three of those teams saw their season end, with Durant baseball losing in a 9-1 contest to Windermere, Durant softball falling to Newsome for the third time this season in yet another narrow 3-2 contest and Strawberry Crest softball losing in a 10-2 contest to Land O’ Lakes.
With the books written on those seasons, it left just one team standing in Strawberry Crest baseball. The Chargers claimed their fourth consecutive district title with a 3-2 walkoff win over Bloomingdale, a team that had beaten Crest 5-2 and 8-0 in the regular season. Heading into the regional quarterfinals, they beat Land O’ Lakes 4-3 and moved on to the semifinal against Wharton, another team that had recently beaten the Chargers in a 4-3 contest on April 19.
Crest was able to survive and advance with a 5-2 over Wharton, led by five shutout innings from Zach Redner and home runs from both Ethan Pues and Alex Philpott, scoring their five runs on just five hits.
After the victory over Wharton, the Chargers moved on to the regional finals where they were searching for their first Final Four appearance since 2019 but ultimately met their match against a talented Sickles squad, falling 5-0.
Redner once again took the mound to start Crest’s game against the Gryphons, and the game progressively grew more tense as the scoreless innings wore on.
Redner put the Chargers in the hit column early in the top of the first with a one-out single, but that would be it for the top of the frame. In the bottom half, Sickles drew one walk but Crest was kept out of danger as second baseman Ray Allen Vasquez made a diving stop on a hit and run line drive from the Gryphons, throwing the runner out while still on the ground to end the inning.
No hitter from either team reached base through the second and third innings before Redner came up big in the top of the fourth to give Crest their first scoring threat of the game with a leadoff double to the wall in right. Shortstop Arjun Nimmala drew a four-pitch walk in the next at bat and the Chargers seemed to be in a position to strike first, but a shallow fly ball to center and a ground ball double play ended the inning and the scoring chance.
In the bottom of the fourth, Sickles drew a leadoff walk and the runner advanced to second on a high chopper fielded by the Chargers’ catcher Damien Bennett. A base hit to right put runners on the corners for the Gryphons and Crest made a move to the bullpen, bringing in Philpott. As he’s done time and time again this year, Philpott worked his way out of the jam quickly by striking out the first batter he faced and inducing a shallow fly out from the next.
But in the bottom of the fifth, Sickles finally broke through. After back-to-back one-out walks, the Gryphons were once again putting themselves in position to score. A pop out to third marked the second out and an intentional walk to Caden McDonald — one of Florida’s most dangerous hitters, sporting a .623 batting average and eight home runs on the year — brought up catcher Justin Allen. A dangerous hitter in his own right, Allen changed the course of the game with one swing as he launched a grand slam — his seventh home run of the year — to straightway center and well over the towering batter’s eye to give Sickles a 4-0 lead.
Sickles added one more run in the sixth with an RBI single down the third base line, extending their lead to 5-0, but the damage was already done as the Chargers were unable to overcome the commanding deficit.
While the season didn’t end the way Strawberry Crest certainly wanted it to, 2022 was still a historic run for the group as the Chargers notched their fourth consecutive district title en route to a 20-9 record, marking their largest single-season win total in school history ahead of 19 wins in 2018 and 2019 and 18 wins in 2013 and 2014.
