OLDSMAR - Storybook tales are supposed to have happy endings. Unfortunately for Bayshore's minor baseball team, the end caught up with it Monday.
Cocoa scored seven runs in the fifth inning, carrying it to an 11-5 victory and eliminating Bayshore from the state tournament.
Bayshore held a one-run lead heading into the fifth, but that would not have been enough to lead the team to the semifinals. Circumstances dictated Bayshore had to beat Cocoa, which was 2-0, by at least six runs.
Bayshore was forced to forfeit its first game - an 11-1 win in four - because, according to rules, all players must get in the game, and one did not. The player was at the plate when the 11th run scored on a wild pitch. Because the run triggered the mercy rule, he did not complete his at-bat, so it was not official.
After Baker County beat Niceville/Valparaiso 16-7 earlier in the day, Bayshore had to beat Cocoa to force a three-way tie for the top spot at 2-1 and allow less runs per inning than Cocoa in the three games in pool play.
That became moot when Cocoa's first eight batters reached base safely in the fifth. The crucial blow came from Jordan Holt, who hit a slicing liner down the right field line that cleared the bases and put Cocoa ahead 7-5. Kyle Davis added a two-run double.
Bayshore took a 2-0 lead in the first as Erik Hughes and Reid Burt followed Max Rowe's double with back-to-back run-scoring singles. Burt got Bayshore's third run when he led off the fourth with a single and scored on Johnson Lykes' double. Hughes and Burt scored in the top of the fifth with another set of back-to-back run-scoring singles after Spencer Mathews doubled and Rowe was intentionally walked. Cocoa plays Southwest Port St. Lucie today in the semifinals. Baker County faces South Fort Myers, which eliminated Plant City.
After a two-out rally in the sixth put Plant City runners on second and third, pitcher Danny Saez scooped up a grounder hit to his right and threw to first base, giving South Fort Myers a 4-3 victory.
Tyler Packanik doubled to the rightfield corner and Brett Nizamoff walked to give Plant City a chance. Nizamoff and Jeffrey Hall had singles as Plant City scored all its runs in the third. Brett Jones pitched a complete game and allowed three hits, but he two hit batters and walked one.
Casey Gibson's single gave Fort Myers the go-ahead run in the top of third..
