SPRING HILL – When heavy rain on Friday night saturated the Springstead infield, the Class 6A, District 6 baseball final had to hold off until Saturday afternoon.
For the host Eagles, it was worth the wait, as they rallied quickly from a 3-0 deficit and pulled out a 9-5 victory over surprising Weeki Wachee.
“Feels great. It’s the best feeling in the world,” said center fielder Johnny Oliveira said. “Now we’ve got to come out strong next week and the following weeks. Just got to keep rallying.
“I knew we were going to regroup. We’re too good of a team to not regroup. I knew we were going to win that game. We’re a good team. We’re strong. We’ve got enough pitching, enough hitting. I knew it.”
Weeki Wachee (6-21) came into the six-team tournament seeded sixth, but stunned third-seeded Dunnellon on Tuesday, 6-3, then second-seeded Citrus on Wednesday, 5-2, to earn their first regional berth.
“The kids were very confident coming into this game. They’ve been riding a rollercoaster all week,” Weeki Wachee head coach Pat McHugh said. “We’ve done some things this week that we’ve never done in school history. They were eager to be in this game. They wanted to be playing Springstead, and right now we hope we get another shot in two weeks (in the regional semifinals). That’s what our goal is.
“We got healthy at the right time. Having (Jeff) Misener back in the middle of the order changes everything because it puts everybody where they’re supposed to be. And that’s been the battle all year. We’ve had people hurt, people missing. It’s been a revolving lineup. Up until this past week we really haven’t had a stable lineup that we could send out there every game.”
The Hornets jumped on the top-seeded Eagles (20-6) out of the gate, taking advantage of a walk and an error setting up Zach Rosario for a run-scoring single in the top of the first inning. Two more scored on wild pitches.
But that lead didn’t last long, in part because of four errors committed by Weeki Wachee in the bottom of the frame. First, though, came a solo home run by Oliveira, after two quick outs. His deep fly went off the right fielder’s glove and over the fence.
Two consecutive hits by Joey DelGatto and Luke Laferty preceded three straight fielding miscues before Noah Siem lined a single into right for a run batted in, and Springstead had a 5-3 advantage.
“We’ve been doing that all year,” Springstead head coach Shawn Laferty said. “Sometimes you get out and give up three or four runs, make some mistakes. Then we just battled back. The kids get the big hits. Obviously Johnny Oliveira’s home run, that seemed like that ignited us.”
“It felt nice. It definitely boosted us a lot,” said Oliveira, who went 2-for-2 with a walk, a double and four RBI in Wednesday’s 10-0 semifinal win over Crystal River. “The team gets hyped about that and everything. It’s a good feeling.”
An error and a RBI single by Levi O’Brien allowed the Hornets to tie the score at 5 in the third. Back-to-back singles by Brett Maharaj and Dakota Blevens drove in a run apiece and put the Eagles in front for good in the fifth.
Laferty and Blevens worked bases-loaded walks in the sixth for some added insurance. That was enough support for Dominic Marrone, who came on in relief in the fourth and pitched the final 3 2/3 innings, not allowing a run while permitting three hits, a walk and three strikeouts.
The Eagles will host Belleview in a regional quarterfinal on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
“Good teams know how to win games if you make mistakes. That’s what I’ve been telling them all year long,” Coach Laferty said. “We’ve got pitching. We’ve got kids that can hit the ball. We’ve seen guys that throw 90 (miles per hour) all year long. I don’t think you’re going to see anything better than that. We’ve just got to field the baseball, make plays. That’s the key.”
“We’re a lot hungry for more. We’re not giving up,” Oliveira said. “I think we can go far. We’ve got a great team. We’ve got enough pitching, enough hitting. We’re just outstanding all over.”
Meanwhile, Weeki Wachee will play its first-ever regional contest at Citra-North Marion.
“It’s a steppingstone, but we have to keep working,” McHugh said. “We can’t sit there and relax now. We’ve got to go to North Marion next Wednesday and keep building on the success we’ve had.
“It’s been a tough year because we’ve had a lot of things that didn’t go our way. We’re 0-8 in one-run games. That’s unheard of, I don’t know that you’re going to find another team in the state that has that. But these kids didn’t break. They kept battling, and it shows that they were in this game.”
In the 5A-7 Tournament at Hernando, won by top-seeded Nature Coast with a 13-8 triumph over the host Leopards on Friday evening, Central won a Tuesday quarterfinal over Hudson, 4-2. The next night in the semifinals, the Bears (14-13) were no-hit by the Sharks’ J.P. Gates in a 2-0 loss.
Hernando (17-11) beat Gulf on Tuesday, 15-4, and Fivay in Wednesday’s semifinals, 7-6. The Leopards will travel to Orlando-Bishop Moore Catholic for this Wednesday’s regional quarterfinals, while Nature Coast (20-4) hosts Orlando-Lake Highland Prep. Both games start at 7 p.m.
While Springstead’s softball team captured its regional quarterfinal against North Marion on Wednesday, 6-0, over at Nature Coast the Lady Sharks upended Lake Highland Prep in eight innings, 3-2.
Chyloe Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with two RBI and Chayse Skinner was 2-for-3 with two runs scored. Abbey Primavera tossed a complete game, giving up two earned runs on four hits with nine strikeouts. The winning run was scored in the extra frame, on a Celine Kordon infield single.
Next up for the Lady Sharks (24-4), they’ll host Bishop Moore Catholic in a semifinal on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.