Three area teams reach finals

By STEVE LEE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 12, 2001

DADE CITY -- Only one team from Dade City Little League remains alive in the District 4 Tournament of Champions. Two others will settle for being runners-up.

The Dade City Reds played Plant City American Monday night, which came out of the losers' bracket hoping to defeat the Reds twice to claim the Major baseball title. If the Reds lost Monday, Game 2 will be tonight.

The Reds improved to 4-0 in the tournament after Saturday's 7-0 win over Auburndale. Zach Maggard hit a two-run home run to back Kevin Freed's one-hit, 13-strikeout performance.

Meanwhile, after advancing to the final of the Senior baseball division from the loser's bracket, the Dade City Braves lost 4-2 Sunday to Lake Wales.

The same fate was suffered by the Pride in the Junior softball final, losing twice to Frostproof, 24-7 and 21-11. "We ran out of steam," Braves coach Randy Maggard said after his team's split with Lake Wales that included Saturday's 7-6 comeback victory. Trailing 6-5 in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Braves rallied on singles by Eric Smith and Joe Endress. Both runners scored on Chris Darnell's double to rightfield.

"(Darnell) hit it over the rightfielder's head. He smacked it," Maggard said.

The Braves reached the championship round by beating Plant City 12-0 on Friday in a game cut short by the 10-run rule. Matt Smith pitched the shutout and Cole Putterbaugh hit a two-run home run.

With 18 runs scored in two games, Pride assistant coach Dan Herndon felt the team "scored plenty of runs. We hit the ball pretty well."

But injuries forced several players out of position and led to Frostproof's 45 runs in two games.

"We just had a lot of errors," Herndon said.

Dade City's Kara Nathe, Jessica Sanchez and Tiffany Parker each had two hits in the first loss on Saturday.

In Sunday's game, Sanchez had two hits and two RBI, Jami Pass had three hits and scored twice, Amy Herndon had a double and two RBI, and Casey Roy had two hits and scored a run.

DISTRICT 12: West Pasco Little League teams continued to advance in the early rounds of the Tournament of Champions.

All softball games are being played at Pinhill Park. West Pasco played Dunedin in Senior and Major softball Monday night. In Junior softball, West Pasco plays Tarpon Springs tonight at 7.

At the Englebert Complex in Dunedin, West Pasco's Senior baseball team played Palm Harbor Monday night.

Tonight in Junior baseball at Englebert, Hudson plays Dunedin American and West Pasco plays Dunedin National. Both games start at 7.

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