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One team down, one to go
By JAMAL THALJI
© St. Petersburg Times, DADE CITY -- And then there was one. One county team left in this week's Section 3 tournament, that is. Both the Dade City major baseball team and the Land O'Lakes senior softball team lost Sunday. It was Land O'Lakes' second loss of the tournament, which means the team is finished in all-star play. But it was Dade City's first loss, so it still lives on in the loser's bracket. Now Dade City awaits the loser of tonight's Apopka-Maitland game, which will determine who it faces at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Burks Park. The winner advances to the title game where it must defeat Bloomingdale twice Thursday and Friday to win the championship and advance to next week's state tournament in Orlando. As for Sunday's games, neither was kind to the local competitors. Rain delays forced the continual postponement of Saturday's Land O'Lakes-Citrus Park game, and when play resumed at 6 p.m., two girls had left the already short-handed Land O'Lakes team, leaving the squad with just eight players and forcing a forfeit. When Land O'Lakes finally took the field Sunday, the team fell 10-8 to Frostproof. Land O'Lakes held a 5-1 lead in the fourth inning, but it slipped away. In the first inning, Colleen Raison stole home on a passed ball and Melissa White batted in Julie Raul to start the scoring. But with the rain making it hard on Land O'Lakes' pitching and defense to hold onto the ball, Frostproof took advantage of the miscues, stormed back and tied it at 7-7 in the sixth. Frostproof then took the lead for good in the seventh. "Our team, they did pretty good," coach Laura Bloomer said. "They started off real strong. We had a few errors, and when you get to this level the team with the least errors wins, and we just had a few too many errors." As for Dade City, nothing went the team's way in a 10-1 loss to Bloomingdale on Sunday. Jeff Parker took the loss, falling to 1-1. "We kept trying to come back," coach Dale Maggard said. "But we just couldn't get anything going. It was one of those days where nothing went right. "We came out hitting the ball pretty good. We put it in play. But we just weren't scoring any runs. Then everything just went south." The lone bright spot was Gerald Mathis, who drove in Dade City's lone run, pinch-runner Josh Schofield. As for Bloomingdale's bats, Maggard said that team got a lot of seeing-eye base hits. "Every ball we hit was to somebody else, every ball they hit was away from us," Maggard said. "It was just one of those days." Maggard wasn't sure whether the team was still celebrating Saturday's 3-2 win over defending major baseball champion Apopka. "That was a huge win for us," he said. Maggard knows how hard it will be for Dade City to win three consecutive sectional games to make it to the state tournament. But Dade City will be answering with undefeated Jamie Cruz on the mound, who has a 4-0 record in all-star play this season.
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