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Tonight's game has no district implications, but there's a big rivalry to consider.
By ANTONYA ENGLISH
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 29, 2000
LECANTO -- One team is still struggling to find its true identity.
The other has started off better than ever in recent years.
None of that will matter tonight when Lecanto and Crystal River meet on the baseball field. The teams will be playing with arguably the strongest motivator of all: pride.
"It is a big rivalry because all these kids played Little League baseball together," Crystal River coach Mike Hampton Sr. said. "It's not a district game and we're not going to go out and throw our No. 1 pitchers. We will get into our rotation and work with what we're going to work with. But it's a big game for the players."
It may not be as big as the "Bat Game," the emotional contest honoring a former Lecanto player who died in a car accident years ago. The teams will battle for the symbolic bat later in the season.
But that doesn't mean tonight's 6:30 game at Crystal River isn't important.
Lecanto coach Bill Emerson said the Panthers are excited.
"We're going over there to give them everything we've got," he said. "It's not a district game, but it is a conference game. Still, more important, it is a county rivalry and we want to have a good showing. We're going over there to win, not just show up."
The Panthers are 3-3 heading into tonight's game, having defeated North Marion, Wesley Chapel and Gulf.
Crystal River is 1-4, but its win over River Ridge last Tuesday provided a big boost.
"It built up some confidence for them," Hampton said. "We were behind twice and came back and we ended up winning 9-8. The next game we played was Dunnellon and we played fairly well, but we made a couple of errors in critical situations and we couldn't recover. Our inexperience is still showing, but we are showing signs of improvement."
So are the Panthers, Emerson said.
"Our hitting is starting to come around and we got a good pitching effort from Ray Lisotta Saturday," Emerson said. "We need to find some more good outings on the mound and we need to continue to hit better."
Crystal River's efforts have been focused on its pitching. Hampton said the learning process continues.
"We're working with them and teaching them basic pitching philosophies and new pitches that we want them to learn to throw," he said. "We're trying to narrow it down and get our pitchers with a set rotation. It will probably be about halfway into the season before we get the confidence that we want them to have. So we're going to use a couple of guys pitching (tonight) to see how things work.
"And we're still shuffling around the infield. We're not settled on the first baseman and our play in the middle infield has been inconsistent, so we're still trying to work on those things."