Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Time for remembrance and reflection

By FRANK PASTOR and STEVE LEE
Published December 30, 2005

It was a year of firsts and lasts, of hellos and goodbyes. Some more sudden than others.

A wrestler bid adieu to his sport shortly after winning his first state championship. A 17-year-old who has yet to finish high school drew his first paycheck as a professional boxer.

A local pro claimed his first PGA Tour victory, while a longtime presence disappeared from county soccer fields to coach in Europe's Premier League.

A two-sport standout left the area to pursue his pro baseball and football dreams, and two former prep stars said farewell a final time.

Among the comings and goings, none was was more memorable than the Hudson football team's arrival alongside the best in county history after decades of mediocrity.

Here are our picks for Pasco County's top 10 sports stories of 2005:

1. ALL HAIL HUDSON: Only one team in county history, 1992 state champion Pasco, had a bigger bite than the 2005 Cobras.

About as dangerous as a garter snake for much of its history, Hudson joined the 1983 and '92 Pasco teams and the 2002-03 Land O'Lakes squads as the only ones from the county to advance to the third round of the state playoffs.

Behind a powerful offensive line, balanced offense and playmaking defense, Hudson's "bunch of overachievers," as coach Mark Nash called them, went 10-3, won the Class 3A, District 8 championship and made the playoffs for the first time in 26 seasons.

With members of Hudson's 1979 team, its last to make the playoffs, in attendance, Hudson defeated Orlando Bishop Moore for its first-ever playoff win. Urged to further heights by well-wishers in the community and signs on storefronts, the Cobras defeated Williston before falling to Citra North Marion in a region final.

2. IMMEDIATE IMPACT: Big things were expected from former Land O'Lakes quarterback Drew Weatherford after he signed with Florida State, just not this soon.

A medical redshirt as a freshman after he sprained his right ankle on his first collegiate play, Weatherford beat out highly touted Xavier Lee of Daytona Beach Seabreeze for the starting job in his first full season.

Weatherford led Florida State past Miami in his first start and guided the Seminoles to an 8-4 record, including a 27-22 win over Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, putting them in the Orange Bowl opposite Penn State on Tuesday.

In July, Taylor Greene's fatal car crash cast a pall on soccer communities in Pasco and Polk counties. Ridgewood's second-leading career scorer also made an impact - on and off the field - as a Florida Southern freshman. Family, friends and teammates paid their respects at a funeral that drew hundreds.

David Simpson, the Times' all-Pasco co-player of the year in 2003, helped Wesley Chapel's basketball team reached the state tournament that season. He also made the all-Suncoast Conference team as a Pasco-Hernando Community College freshman. Simpson was shot and killed at a Tampa McDonald's parking lot in November.

4. WORTH THE WAIT: No matter where his career goes from here, Lake Jovita resident Tim Petrovic has a PGA Tour victory, and it came in dramatic fashion.

At the Zurich Classic in May, Petrovic made an uphill 20-foot putt for birdie to force a playoff, then clinched the win by nailing a 4-foot par putt. At the age of 38, Petrovic finally had his career-high payday ($990,000) after years spent on mini-tours, tending bar and managing a pizza restaurant.

Petrovic, an All-American who led Hartford to four NCAA finals, moved to Tampa in 1992 and finally earned a U.S. Open spot in 2001. His career highlight, however, is that PGA win in Avondale, La.

5. SURPRISE SNEAK: After months of speculation, Pasco two-sport star Dominic Brown in September announced his intention to play football at the University of Miami. And that wasn't even the biggest news involving Brown.

The football and baseball standout pulled an end run, leaving Pasco one week before the start of football practice to live with his father, Robert Walker, in Georgia and enroll at nearby Stone Mountain Redan. Brown's mother, Rosemary, was her son's legal guardian and contested the move. But a Georgia court awarded Walker custody, clearing the way for Brown to play sports in the state.

If he is chosen lower than the sixth round of Major League Baseball's amateur draft, Brown said he will attend Miami, where he hopes to play baseball and football.

6. OLD & NEW ALLEGIANCES: Land O'Lakes' Caz Piurowski and Zephyrhills' Bryan Thomas know all about bad blood, having played in one of the county's fiercest and longstanding rivalries.

Now, they're in store for a real rivalry.

Piurowski will go from a Gator to a Florida State Seminole and Thomas from a Bulldog to a Florida Gator as both orally committed to prominent state schools. While neither got their wish to play in a state championship, dreams of national championships now fill their heads. Both capped stellar prep careers by being the only county players chosen for the Florida Athletic Coaches Association North-South All-Star Classic.

Piurowski, a tight end/defensive end, was the county's second-leading receiver with 34 catches for 589 yards and five touchdowns. Thomas, a playmaker on both sides of the ball, had 12 touchdowns - seven on offense (four rushing, three receiving), three interception returns and one each returning a punt and kickoff.

7. HOME SWEET RANCH: The Little Everglades Ranch lured runners from near and far to Dade City as the state cross country meet relocated.

The state meet, held the previous four seasons at Tampa's Ed Radice Park, took place in December at the horse steeplechase park. The last time the county had hosted a state competition was when River Ridge hosted volleyball finals in 1993 and '94.

The 2,050-acre ranch property, which includes a 11/4-mile long and 90-foot wide track, also will host the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional this spring. Down the road, an Olympic training complex might be showcased there.

8. GREAT SCOTT: Years after the discovery of his father's wrestling shoes in a closet piqued his interest in wrestling, Land O'Lakes' Scott Mays capped an outstanding prep career by becoming the Gators' third state champion.

Mays got a brief scare when Bradenton Bayshore's Shane Hamm put him on his back during a region semifinal match, but he bounced back to win 8-7.

Mays didn't look back, besting all comers at the state tournament, including Jupiter's Haywood Range 3-1 in overtime to win the Class 2A, 215-pound final in February at The Lakeland Center.

The match was Mays' last as a wrestler. The second-team all-state linebacker later gave up football, too, after accepting an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

9. DUAL IDENTITY: When Joe Linenfelser told his Ridgewood classmates he was a professional athlete, they thought he was joking. Who's laughing now?

Linenfelser, 17, of New Port Richey became the youngest licensed professional boxer in the United States when he was licensed by the Iowa Athletic Commission on Sept. 1. To emphasize his youth and hard-hitting ability, Linenfelser's father, Jeff, nicknamed his son, "Bazooka Joe."

Linenfelser lived up to his name in his first pro fight, knocking out 41-year-old Donnie Penelton of Milwaukee, Wis., two minutes, 55 seconds into the first round of their scheduled four-round bout in October in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

Two months later, he knocked out 21-year-old Joey Ortiz of Blairstown, Iowa, in the second round of a scheduled four-round bout.

10. ACROSS THE POND: Longtime soccer coach Tony Paris, who for the past two decades has worked with youth, prep and college players throughout the region, resigned in December as Saint Leo women's coach to coach in Europe's Premier League.

Paris, who played professionally in Europe and South Africa, will coach a team in the Faroe Islands. His departure is so noteworthy abroad that BBC televised his July visit to the Danish-ruled islands, located between Norway and Iceland.

[Last modified December 30, 2005, 00:57:15]