SPRING HILL – For most of the Spring Hill Senior Boys (age 14) All-Stars, the previous two summers have produced Dixie Baseball state championships.
First they won as “O”Zone (age 11-12) players in 2014, then repeated the feat as Junior Boys (age 13) last year.
But the Senior Boys is the oldest division in which Spring Hill typically fields an all-star squad, adding special meaning to Wednesday afternoon’s state tournament championship game at Anderson Snow Sports Complex.
Spring Hill, which had already won its first four contests, scored three runs in the first inning and never looked back, defeating West Volusia, 5-3.
“This is the third state championship in a row for us. That’s pretty exciting,” Spring Hill head coach Joe Abbadessa said. “I felt like there was more pressure this year than there was previous years, both because coming off of a World Series title last year. Just seemed like we had a huge target on our back.
“And then even with our own league not performing as well as it has in previous years and not really having anyone win anything. We felt like it was really up to us to at least get one sort of championship this year. But it felt like somebody released the pressure valve as soon as Jaden (Rivera) made that catch out there (for the final out) in right field, I’ll tell you that.”
When the tournament opened on Saturday, Spring Hill bombarded Bartow, 13-3. A bye on Sunday and a rainout Monday kept Spring Hill off the field until Tuesday’s 9-3 victory over West Volusia. A second game that day against North Tampa was postponed due to lightning.
After disposing of North Tampa the following morning, Spring Hill turned around a few hours later in a rematch with West Volusia. Jonny McMath hit a two-out double in the bottom of the first and scored on Jake Rice’s single. Nick Morales doubled and Chase Davis plated two more runners on a single.
Luis Ortiz later scored on a fielder’s choice in the fifth, while Davis worked a leadoff walk and eventually came across on a wild pitch in the sixth.
Meanwhile, Ortiz tossed five innings, giving up a run on five hits and no walks, striking out eight. Richie Fox pitched the final two frames to earn a save.
“I think what it all started back to was just the starting pitching was again phenomenal,” Abbadessa said. “When you have pitching, nine runs in four games, you’re giving up a little bit more than two runs per game. That’s going to allow you to be pretty successful. So I really give credit to the pitching staff.
“The middle of the order really produced the way we’d like them to, and then we got a lot of production from the bottom. What makes us so dangerous is the lineup is so circular. You have kids one through nine that can do so much with the bat. There’s a lot of speed, there’s athleticism, there’s power. To pick out just a couple; literally one through nine all participated, and one through 12 actually participated in a big way.”
A total of 10 players on the roster were with the Juniors that not only won states but went on to capture the World Series. This core group was also the World Series runner-up in “O”Zone action.
This World Series, beginning Aug. 6 in Pineville, La., represents the final tournament for this local crew and one last chance to add another accomplishment to its legacy.
“This is the swan song,” Abbadessa said. “Regardless of what we do up in the World Series, this felt really good from that standpoint, to be able to go out there and win this and finish out as state champions again.
“We still have a little bit of work to do. I think the biggest thing was just trying to group everyone together. With everyone playing high school ball now, and trying to get everyone here for practices and being on the same page I think was a little tough at times. So our thought was here is if we can just get through the state tournament, I thought that there was more opportunity for us to actually improve as we move forward now and prepare for the World Series.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.