ORANGE PARK - With the defense of their Class 1A title of last year, the St. Johns Country Day School baseball team has had a few hiccups thus far as the baseball season starts to unfold with Clay High looking to put themselves back into the state picture and Middleburg rocking hard with a new coach.
"Our pitching is going to be strong and is looking pretty good at this point," said Spartan coach Tom Lucas, now 5-2, who was speaking out of his dugout at the Spartans first ever game against Middleburg High on February 25, a 7-2 win. "We are moving around our batting lineup to try and get the same strong look like we had last year. We'll get there."
Out at Keystone Heights, coach Chris Roach has loaded up his schedule and opened with a preseason gauntlet of Buchholz, Clay and St. Joseph Academy; all losses, but with a quick look on where to go next.
Two opening losses, 8-6 to Clay and 3-1 to St. Joseph's Academy have been followed by seven straight wins with a 4-2 win over Middleburg in the middle of the string; February 21.
Middleburg, at 5-2 under new coach Jordan Cochuyt, has created a tough attitude that brings late inning strength to the Bronco lineup with the best outing the St. Johns loss.
Against Middleburg, the Spartans blasted the Bronco defense with seven runs in the second inning off three walks and a 2RBI double from Chandler Dantzler, followed by a monster triple from T.J. Sunderhaus followed by a walk, an error and all of a sudden a seven run inning.
St. Johns has added wins over Suwannee High (8-0), Deland (10-0) and Maclay (12-2) over the weekend with a slew of home runs; Gibby Gilliand, Preston Cole and Hunter Rodgers against Suwannee with Madden Williams blasting one against Deland. Maclay saw dingers from Nick Bowden, Sunderhaus and Jonas Wells. Sunderhaus leads the Spartan bats with a .360 average with four players over .300; Williams, Cole, Brayden Harris and Hunter Rodgers.
With coach Cochuyt not letting the Bronco dugout shutdown from the explosion, the Bronco defense shut down the Spartan bats with a double play from third baseman Logan Wehrmeyer to second baseman Hayden Bradshaw to first baseman Nico Hill to clear the bases for a final fly out to Dantzler that ended the inning. A second Bronco double play got St. Johns out in the fourth with right fielder Jordan Walker making a quick throw back into the infield on a Harris line drive that caught Nick Bowden off second base to halt the inning.
"I'm trying to change the culture here, but so far I've liked the way the boys play in Middleburg, always scrappy," said Cochuyt, who comes from historically strong programs around the north Florida area including Oakleaf, University Christian, Eagles' View Academy and Bishop Snyder. "We will win with fundamental baseball."
Just to be fair, St. Johns had a pair of double plays as well.
The Broncos scored off a walk to Bradshaw and a Taylor single before a Michael Gunson 2RBI single.
Keystone Heights turned on the Broncos a game prior in their 4-2 win with an eight strikeout night on the mound from Gauge Barry. Keystone Heights utilized a series of walks and singles to move their baserunners to home plate.
Three walks and a bunt scored the gamewinner for Keystone Heights in a 2-1 win over North Marion on February 20. The Indians had wins last week over Santa Fe (10-8) and Bradford (11-3).
At Clay High, with coach Josh Persinger looking to extend into Final Four territory, the "pieces of the puzzle" are in place, according to Persinger, and it's just a matter of not steering the machine into a ditch.
Clay has two one-run losses; to Providence and Lincoln on their schedule; 3-2 and 7-6 (9 Innings), but have pretty much dominated everyone else to their 6-2 slate with three high-scoring games; 8-1, 11-0 and 10-2 in the past three weeks against Baker County Nease and South Paulding (Ga, 6-2). Lincoln did knock Clay out of the region final last year with the Blue Devils stifled by just three hits and two errors plus inopportune walks and a 2RBI double.
In the February 14 game, Clay blasted to a 6-2 lead into the fourth with Cole Carnell homering and Easton McMahan patroling the mound, but lost four runs in the sixth; back to back doubles on McMahan, for the tie with two walks and a sacrifice fly losing the game.
Clay rebounded with the high scoring trio of wins with Carnell rapping two more homers in the 11-0 win over Nease. Clay got a 5-1 win over Mary Persons on Saturday in Georgia with Easton McMahan and Merrick Rapoza homering and Levi Chmura controlling the mound with six strikeouts.
Oakleaf, 4-4, opened with three wins; Eagle's View, Bishop Kenny and Fleming Island before Clay smacked a 7-1 loss and FSU High stole a 6-5 win on the Knights.
Against FSU, Oakleaf put six on the board in the sixth to tie the game at 5-5 with FSU scoring four in the fourth. Oakleaf had a shot at the win after a single and fielder's choice got the go ahead run with the Knights turning a double play; shortstop JP Espinoas to second base Connor Tant to first base Jay Arzuage-Flores to squelch the rally.
In their at bat, Arzuega-Flores doubled to put the Knights in position, but a strikeout and fly ball ended the game.
Oakleaf had unbeaten Fernandina Beach on Friday with Union County (7-1), Bolles (5-1) and Keystone Heights (7-2) next up. Fernandina Beach won 3-2.
Fleming Island, 1-4, got their first win with a 6-2 game on Orange Park with coach Mike Martino stretching a young lineup against some heavy hitters on his schedule. Orange Park, 4-6, has run an up and down season with wins of 17-1 and 18-0 over Westside twice, but losses of 7-1 and 9-1 to Ridgeview.
Orange Park's batting average (.230) is led by .333 averages to Devon Rail and Adam Forrester with the Raiders knocking out 34 runs batted in thus far with six doubles and no homers. Raider coach George Eldredge has four hurlers with double figures strikeouts led by 17Ks to senior John Nyberg.
Ridgeview High, 2-5, has wins over Orange Park and Eagle's View Academy, but just a .169 batting average with Clayton Gulbrand and Julio Motta over .300.