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Records fell with Roe on the mound

Beyond team marks, right-hander led Pasco to share of conference title.

By FRANK PASTOR
Published May 28, 2006

It's not what a pitcher wants to hear when his coach meets him on the mound.

"You might see some balls go out of the ballpark," Pasco coach Ricky Giles told Stephen Roe as Roe tried to protect a late-inning lead against the middle of Land O'Lakes' lineup in mid-March. "Just keep your head up and finish."

Anthony Santa hit a home run - eliciting a knowing wink from Giles as Roe looked to the dugout - but Roe retired the final batters to preserve a 5-3 win.

It was one of 14 the Pasco senior earned during a record-setting season.

"He had half of their wins," Gulf coach Shaun Wiemer said. "He's definitely the pitcher of the year."

Armed with a fastball that travels up and in and one of the county's nastiest curveballs, Roe broke Dominic Brown's team single-season records for victories (14 to 9) and strikeouts (98 to 97) while helping Pasco (25-4) to a playoff berth and share of the Sunshine Athletic Conference championship.

Roe threw a no-hitter against Springstead and hit his top speed of 88 miles per hour during a dominant relief appearance against Clearwater in the Dunedin Spring Classic.

But he established himself as a big-game pitcher in the victory over Land O'Lakes, which entered the game with a 9-0 record, and defeated Pasco 11-0 in a game that Roe started earlier in the season.

"At that point in time, I think even he himself had to prove that he was that caliber," Giles said. "It was almost a pride thing for him, if he can be the one to carry the team and he was going to be the one to be that man. That was a pivotal time where he knew from that game that he would have the confidence to go on."

Several of Roe's wins came in relief, but that only spoke more loudly to the value he had to his team. When he didn't start, Roe was the pitcher Giles turned to when a lead seemed precarious, no matter the inning.

"If he sees a team coming back on one of our pitchers and needed someone to come in and win the game, that's when he put me in," Roe said.

Roe did his best work on the mound, but he was equally formidable at the plate.

A first baseman or third baseman when he didn't pitch, he batted around .380 with nine home runs and nearly 30 RBIs. He hit a walkoff home run in a regular-season victory over Gulf and homered in district playoff wins over Gulf and South Sumter.

Roe met with coaches when he visited Palm Beach Atlantic and hopes to try out at Lake-Sumter Community College. But any college decision will have to wait, at least for now.

Roe, who was academically ineligible as a sophomore, did not graduate with his classmates.

"I started out the wrong way," he said. "I wasn't too worried about school, which was stupid."

Roe said his family recently petitioned the FHSAA for another year of eligibility but was unsuccessful.

"We figured if I was ineligible to play that (sophomore) year, they would add a year," he said. "But they said no, because other people would try to do it."

Roe will spend the summer working with a private tutor to make up the 11/2 credits he needs to graduate and prepare for college entrance exams.

"Stephen is a competitor," Giles said. "He is one of those guys who will do whatever he needs to do to get around failure. That's the kind of guy he is."

[Last modified May 28, 2006, 01:27:10]