Sharks Fall to Raiders in District Championship

By PATRICK YASINSKAS

BUSHNELL — Opportunity lost was the story of the night for the Nature Coast baseball team in the Class 3A-District 7 Championship Game on Thursday night.

The Sharks stranded 12 base runners in a 5-4 loss to host South Sumter. To make matters worse, that included three times when Nature Coast loaded the bases and produced just one run in those situations. And to top it off, the game ended with Nature Coast runners on first and second base in the seventh inning.

“When you’re playing against a good team and you get the bases loaded, you have to execute and score,” Nature Coast Dan Garofano said. “We had plenty of chances, but we just didn’t execute.”

That was a sharp contrast to Tuesday night’s 9-4 semi-final round victory against Hernando, where the Sharks seemed to capitalize on every opportunity.

“We just didn’t do the little things that matter a lot,” Garofano said.

Early on, it looked as if the Sharks would pick up where they left off against Hernando. Freshman right fielder Aidan O’Nolan led off the game with a single and junior second baseman Bryce Hewell followed with a home run to give Nature Coast a 2-0 lead. But the Sharks squandered multiple big opportunities after that.

Nature Coast starting pitcher Raymond Groetsch, who pitched in relief on Tuesday night went the distance. Groetsch struck out nine, but his control wasn’t as sharp as it had been during a stellar regular season. South Sumter scored three runs in the second inning, taking advantage of three infield hits, two walks and two wild pitches. Groetsch also allowed a leadoff home run to South Sumter first baseman Malakhi Boone in the fourth inning to give the Raiders a 4-3 lead. Boone, who has signed to play football and baseball at the University of Central Florida has nine home runs on the season.

The Sharks bounced back to tie the game (4-4) in the fifth inning as senior centerfielder Jackson Hoyt had an RBI single. But, in the bottom half of the inning, Boone’s younger brother, James, had an RBI single that gave South Sumter a 5-4 lead.

Opportunity kept knocking, but the Sharks weren’t able to answer. They loaded the bases in the top half of the sixth inning, but didn’t score. In the final inning, Nature Coast put runners on first and second with a pair of walks. But Tyson Lake, the fourth pitcher used by South Sumter, recorded a strikeout to end the game.

“We did some things well and we hung in there all the way,” Garofano said. “But we just didn’t execute when it really mattered.”