Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Pasco's Anton Standifer is expected to start in leftfield for Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tenn., this spring.
By GREG AUMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 2002
DADE CITY -- Anton Standifer, who won the county batting title last year as an outfielder at Pasco, will play baseball this spring at Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tenn. .
Standifer, whose .506 average helped lead the Pirates to a Sunshine Athletic Conference championship, is expected to start in leftfield, according to the junior college's first-year coach, Jerry Edwards.
"I really like the way he swings the bat," said Edwards, whose team plays in the 11-school Tennessee Junior College Athletic Association. "He's a good runner with some real speed on the bases and I like his bat speed as well."
Pasco coach Ricky Giles said Standifer already has been impressed by the campus and coaches.
"I just talked to him yesterday, and it seems like a very good program," Giles said. "Anton really seems to like it up there."
Edwards found Standifer just two weeks after he was hired as Hiwassee's coach. Standifer was one of several Pasco players at a wooden bat tournament in Sevierville, Tenn., and Edwards approached Giles about him, thinking the slugger was only a high school junior.
"When he said he was available now, my mouth fell open," Edwards said. "I couldn't believe it. I told him I had somewhere he could play if he wanted to go."
Standifer, who finished with five home runs and 39 RBIs as a senior, was not selected in baseball's amateur draft in June, but will be eligible again next summer.
He will be the third player from last year's Pasco team to sign on with a college program. Shortstop Lee Cruz and outfielder Orlando Rosales both are freshmen at Pasco-Hernando Community College, where Ridgewood pitcher Ronny Lowe signed as well.