SEMINOLE - Phillip Weylie and Shawn Keill scattered four hits over seven shutout innings, as Seminole beat Palm Harbor University 8-0 in the Class 5A playoffs.
"They dominated," Palm Harbor coach John Vigue said. "They threw strikes and attacked the zone. Even when they got behind in the count, they made quality pitches that our guys weren't able to do anything with. It was up and down our lineup."
The visiting Hurricanes never posed a threat, as Warhawks coach Scott Miller got his 101st win in four seasons.
"It's not a personal thing," Miller said. "The wins are a byproduct of the kids that we have in this program. We teach them and drill them as best we can, but you got to have the kids to get to that plateau in four years."
Weylie and Keill had more than enough good baseball in them to dispatch the Hurricanes.
"He is like a junkyard player," Miller said of Keill. "He will scrap and he will fight. He'll get the job done any way he can."
Keill hit two singles for two RBIs and struck out four Hurricanes in relief. Both he and Weylie scored a run.
"I sat on first-pitch fastballs and hit it hard," Keill said. "When they count on me I get the job done."
"Both of them did an outstanding job," Miller said. "Phil is 10-1 now, and he has been doing it for us all year long."
Weylie notched seven strikeouts and pitched five scoreless innings, allowing three hits.
"I hit my spots and mostly stayed away," Weylie said. "I tried to get first-pitch strikes in there and mix it up."
Palm Harbor continued its late-season slide, struggling in all facets of the game. The Hurricanes had as many errors as hits, and the loss was their sixth in seven games.
"I thought we played a little sloppy," Vigue said. "These guys have been making plays all year long, and it is unfortunate that our last two games haven't shown how good of a year we've had. We are a young club, and I just think some of our inexperience started showing."
Said Miller: "This is the time of the year that you would like to peak. Right now we are playing pretty good baseball."
- JEREMY WRITT
4A: Tarpon Spring squanders chances
LEESBURG - Earlier in the season, Matt Klimis said, those runners would have been knocked in. Almost every time.
Tuesday night, Tarpon Springs would have settled for one clutch hit in any of four scoring opportunities. Instead, ace pitcher Klimis got no help in his admirable complete-game effort, and Leesburg got away with a 2-0 win in a Class 4A region quarterfinal.
Klimis, a senior, gave up a home run in the first inning then set down 13 Yellow Jackets in a row before allowing an insurance run in the sixth. But Tarpon Springs (19-9) was nowhere near as tough at the plate with runners in scoring position, going 0-for-6.
In the third Tarpon had the bases loaded with one out but struck out twice against Leesburg's Jonathan Holt. In the fourth a first-and-third, one-out situation vanished with a 1-6-3 double play on a comebacker to Holt.
A popout and strikeout ended a two-on, one-out fifth, and in the sixth Klimis was tagged out at the plate when running on a ground ball to the third baseman.
Four innings with runners in scoring position and one out, no runs and no victory. Holt, on the other hand, completed the shutout to improve to 9-0 on the season for Leesburg (22-5).
"We've hit better pitchers like that in the beginning of the year, just annihilating them," Klimis said. "It's just faded off toward the end of the year. Not to say "choke' or anything, but we've just been psyching ourselves out.
Perhaps, but a tip of the cap to Holt was in order. The senior struck out eight, walked two and hit one all while working through the heavy Tarpon traffic on the bases.
Holt was staked to a 1-0 lead in the first when No.3 hitter Tyler Hill blasted a hanging curveball over the leftfield fence. Leesburg added the second run in the sixth when Klimis hit leadoff batter Michael Costello with a 1-2 pitch. He steal second and third and score when Jeff Bell hit a ground ball off the glove of drawn-in Tarpon shortstop Tim Gayson.
Taking a 2-0 lead to the mound in the top of the seventh, Holt retired the side in order.
"We've come back so many times from one-, two-run games in late innings ... but it really hit us in the seventh inning with one out," Tarpon coach Dan Genna said.
- JOHN SCHWARB
2A: Northside Christian win like old times
Northside Christian's return to the playoffs after a one-year layoff felt like old times, as the Mustangs clobbered Naples Community School 19-0 Tuesday at St. John Neumann High School.
The Mustangs pounded out 19 hits as every starter but one, plus two reserves, had hits.
Northside Christian (18-7) was on probation last season and couldn't compete in the playoffs, but Tuesday's win was a reminder of its postseason dominance since 2000. The Mustangs have won eight playoff games since 2000, seven by the 10-run rule. The 19 runs scored against Community School (9-11) was a school playoff record, eclipsing the mark established in an 18-0 win in 2002.
Northside plays at Fort Meade at 7 p.m. Friday in the region semifinals.
Dave Golliner, the starting pitcher but usually a catcher, pitched three innings of hitless ball and struck out five. He also was 2-for-2 with a run-scoring double.
Leadoff hitter P.K. Keller was 3-for-4 with three runs and three RBIs, and Justin Murphy and Tim Devlin also had three hits.
Northside Christian coach Darrell Don was especially pleased with the bottom of the lineup. No.9 hitter Brett Hawkins scored four runs, and the bottom four hitters combined to score 10.
"They were always on base when the top of the order came up," Don said.
