For most teams, finishing as the World Series runner-up would rank as a phenomenal run through Dixie Baseball All-Star play.
But for the Spring Hill Senior Boys (age 14), such an accomplishment this week came with a hint of disappointment.
When Spring Hill faced Bossier City, Louisiana on Wednesday in Pineville, Louisiana, it marked the third straight year this core group had reached a World Series final.
After taking second as AAA Majors (11-12) in 2014, this crew won the Junior Boys (age 13) World Series crown last summer. This time around, though, Bossier City handed them a heartbreaking 7-6 defeat.
“I thought we played great baseball. We were not lucky. We just had really bad breaks,” Spring Hill head coach Joe Abbadessa said. “It may sound like sour grapes, but it’s really not. We feel we were the better team and somehow the end results didn’t show that. We outplayed them in every facet of the game and lost.”
Spring Hill held a 5-0 lead thanks to a five-run third, as Luis Ortiz hit a solo home run, Jake Rice added a two-run shot and Javy Bonilla knocked in a pair on a double.
But Bossier City responded with three in the bottom of the inning before the skies opened up, forcing a 3 ½-hour rain delay. When play resumed, Bossier City blasted a grand slam in the fourth to pull ahead.
Though Spring Hill scored a run off an error in the sixth, it had previously failed to score with the bases loaded and nobody out in the second and fifth.
“Numerous times we had the opportunity to score and either hit the ball right at somebody or they made a nice defensive play,” Abbadessa said.
Bossier City was far more opportunistic. Abbadessa counted just nine total baserunners for the Louisiana club with all but two coming across, while he estimated that his team stranded nine.
Earlier in the tournament, the Florida state champs blanked Selma, Alabama on Aug. 6 (4-0), followed by Dallas, North Carolina the next day (7-0). On Monday, Spring Hill defeated Columbia County, Georgia (11-5) before falling in its first meeting with Bossier City (15-10).
In that game, Spring Hill went in front 4-0 when ace Ortiz was struck just above his pitching elbow by a line drive back to the mound. He was forced to leave the game, and his team ended up getting knocked into the loser’s bracket.
Facing elimination, Spring Hill bounced back to knock off host Pineville on Tuesday, 10-5. However, Abbadessa was forced to use Ortiz to throw the final five innings, making him ineligible to pitch the remainder of the tournament due to innings limits.
With a three-way tie at one loss apiece, Spring Hill was fortunate enough to draw a bye into the championship tilt, which ended up being a rematch with Bossier City.
“The kids played well. I think we did what we typically do. We pitched pretty well,” Abbadessa said. “I’m still proud of them. We went to back-to-back-to-back championship games in the World Series, not just going to the World Series but the championship game. I don’t think many teams can make that statement.
“We should have won. So you leave with a little bit of an empty feeling. … I tip my hat to Bossier City. They beat us not once but twice. There’s not too many teams that can say they beat us twice.”
Such a three-year run for a Hernando County Dixie squad is practically unprecedented. The Hernando Youth League Majors (age 17-19) won a World Series in 1983 after two consecutive runner-up finishes.
Since Spring Hill Dixie does not field teams beyond the Senior Boys division, this was the end of the road for these players as a collective unit.
“It definitely hit me. After everything was over I talked with the kids and it was pretty emotional,” Abbadessa said. “We were just lamenting everything we’ve been through together and what we accomplished. This was a very, very special group of kids and a team in the utmost sense of the word. They checked their egos at the door.
“We wanted to be the first team around here to repeat as World Series champs. Ultimately we fell a little short but afterward we were talking and going through what we accomplished, everything we did the last couple of years.
“This was the best team I’ve ever been around and I’ll probably ever be around. I don’t know if we’ll ever see guys do what these guys did at the level they did it.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.