Lions find the answers
Faced with a lineup full of holes, King pulls off top district seed.
By MIKE READLING, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 27, 2003
TAMPA - Jim Macaluso sat in his office behind the King dugout and tried to explain how his Lions earned the No.1 seed for this week's Class 5A, District 8 tournament.
How could a team that lost two starters and six players to first-year Middleton while playing in a district with Chamberlain (fresh off a final four berth) without a shortstop or leftfielder when tryouts ended wind up 11-1 in district play with a first-round bye?
Macaluso's still trying to get to the bottom of that riddle.
"In 28 years of coaching here, I can't remember not having a leftfielder, catcher or a shortstop," he said. "I mean, this is Class 5A baseball. It was scary in January thinking, "Man, we've got to play next month."'
Then Macaluso and his volunteer staff of Anthony Macaluso, Ben Burnett and Jeff Mantei, pulled off the equivalent of picking up a Rubik's Cube and solving it in an hour. Without taking the stickers off and moving them around.
The one thing Macaluso knew he'd be able to count on was the starting pitching. Stephen Locke and Marcus Causey were coming back after solid seasons.
The problem was going to be finding players to fill in behind them. Therefore, a realistic record before the season started was probably in the .500 range, Macaluso said.
Then came Jeff Bromley, Marek Carter, Chris Schweitzer and Brian Pawlowski.
Suddenly, the longtime coach was trying to calm his team down and guard against getting too emotional as they prepared to play Chamberlain in the game that would decide the district's top team.
"I talked to them after their 12th win and told them that no matter what happened from here on out, if we beat Chamberlain or not, 12 wins was a very successful season," Macaluso said. "When we beat Leto on a Friday and had Chamberlain on Tuesday, I told them the same thing. Thirteen wins is a very successful season."
Of course, that successful season wouldn't have happened had several Lions not asserted themselves and filled some gaping holes in the lineup.
Bromley stepped in at shortstop after Josh Johnson transferred to Middleton. Bromley had only played two games at third base before this season but Macaluso needed a body (bad) and Bromley's fit.
Carter spent his first season on the varsity team in leftfield and Schweitzer performed admirably in his first season behind the plate. Pawlowski celebrated his inaugural varsity season by going 2-1 with two saves and a 1.93 ERA.
"Shortstop was the one position where I wasn't sure where we were going," Macaluso said. "I didn't have a clue. Even after tryouts, I didn't know. But Bromley's been huge for us. The kid just works and works and works and works.
"I wish I could point to one thing as to why we're winning but it's been a combination. Every game we're playing 12, 13, 14, 15 guys. They've all filled in and done a good job."
King gained the reputation the past three years of being slow starters and digging early holes. After all, you go 1-5, 1-4 and 1-5 and people start to notice, not to mention snicker.
But Macaluso and his band of position-fillers beat Gaither and Bloomingdale in the preseason classic and all of sudden this thing called belief was flowing through the King dugout.
"It gave us some perspective into who we were," Schweitzer said.
But perhaps Locke said it best: "We didn't know what it was like to lose. Everyone pulled together so we could win."
King won its first five games, finished the season 16-4 overall and set a school record by winning 10 straight at one point.
But now the hard part begins.
"If you would have told me at the beginning of the season we would be 16-3 at one point and get the No.1 seed, I would have taken that every day," Locke said. "It's been great. There's a lot of talk around school about the team."
You have to wonder how long it will take for that talk to make it around the state.
CAMBRIDGE FORFEITS WINS: Cambridge has been forced to forfeit 18 wins due to using an ineligible player. The ruling by the FHSAA relegates the Lancers to 2-24 overall and last in their district heading into this week's tournament.
The problem arose when Cambridge treated catcher Michel Marquez, a Cuban refugee, as a home schooler rather than a transfer student. Marquez is home schooled by his sister, but Cambridge administrators found out late in the season that Marquez should have been treated as a transfer since he started the school year at Miami Southridge.
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