Pitching woes plague 'Canes

By DAWN REISS and MIKE TOMPKINS
Published April 28, 2006

OCALA - Citrus coach Jon Bolin called freshman Jeoffrey Labrador at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night. It wasn't ideal, calling a junior varsity pitcher the night before the district championship game against North Marion, but he was desperate.

With a pitching "rotation" of two - Derek Desomma and Joey Budnick - Bolin needed some relief. Budnick had pitched on Tuesday. DeSomma had just finished pitching six innings followed by reliever Anthony DelGuidice. DelGuidice had pitched five scoreless innings before coming out in the top of the 12th with cramps in his right hamstring and left calf and being replaced by freshman Brandin Barroso in the four-hour battle against Crystal River.

"I told him to come by and see me to get a varsity uniform this morning," Bolin said after Citrus' 6-2 loss to North Marion. "He kept us in the game, but we can't make excuses for what happened."

In a scoreless game, Barroso took the mound in the bottom of the second inning, hitting his first two batters - North Marion's Zane Bowman and Mike Brinkley - with his breaking ball. Bowman stole second and third on Citrus errors, then scored on a Cody Scully bunt. Barroso had time to get to the ball, but wasn't sure what to do with it - looking to first, then to home as Bowman scored.

"I was just shook up out there," Barroso said. "I didn't have the right mind-set."

Labrador took over in the third, and Bowman scored again.

Senior Randy Hernandez injected a short-lived Citrus burst by scoring a rightfield home run, his seventh of the season, in the fourth. DelGuidice helped Citrus close the gap by scoring Justin Budd as the 'Canes (20-8) trailed 4-2 in the top of the sixth. But everything changed later that inning.

Labrador walked his first two in the sixth as the infield took out the third batter. Bolin pulled his second pitcher of the night, replacing Labrador with Budnick who was on a 1-1 count when his fastball gave way to a Matt Seese double that scored two, clinching North Marion (20-7) its first district title after a nine-year dry spell.

Though Bolin admitted Budnick could have played earlier in the game, he opted to rest his pitcher instead for Tuesday's region quarterfinal.

"Two days rest isn't a whole lot of time," Bolin said. "Plus we're in the playoffs. What does it really do to win a district title if you burn up in the first round?"

DADE CITY - In Thursday's semifinals, Pasco's offense molded four home runs with six walks and two hit batters, cruising to an 11-1, five-inning victory against Gulf. The win earned the host Pirates a spot in tonight's championship game against South Sumter.

Pasco jumped to an early lead, scoring five runs in the first third of an inning against Bucs starter Brandon Decker. Pasco's Mike Onyskin led off the game with a double, and the ensuing hitter, Jaime Cruz, drove him in with a double of his own.

The following hitter, Robbie Shields, then sent a 3-2 curveball just over the rightfield wall for a two-run home run. The shot, Shield's 15th, gave the Pirates (24-3) and starting pitcher Stephen Roe all the offense they would need.

Roe pitched four innings, allowing only two hits, striking out four and walking two. His lone mistake was an 0-2 fastball to Gulf (13-14) infielder Nito Navarro, whose second-inning homer gave the Bucs their only run. Roe added a home run of his own in the bottom of the second, and Shields and Zach Maggard went back-to-back in the third.

"We're playing well," Pasco coach Ricky Giles said. "We hit the ball, and we got a little offense going early. Stephen (Roe) did a good job for us, except for that one pitch. From one through six or seven, we've been consistent. These guys are a pleasure, and I'm lucky to have them."

In the afternoon game, Zephyrhills (15-11) was unable to hold onto a 6-4 lead, giving up three runs in the top of the seventh to fall to South Sumter 7-6.

The Bulldogs had been down 4-1, but scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth to pull ahead. Despite outhitting the Red Raiders (14-13) and getting a 4-for-4, two-double day from leftfielder Dylan Giella, Zephyrhills could not seem to get the ball over the plate defensively.

"We hit the ball," Bulldogs coach Brett Cimorelli said. "But when you (walk 10 batters and hit two), that's the ballgame right there."

[Last modified April 28, 2006, 02:10:40]