Without a doubt, all three Plant City-area high schools are happy with the way their baseball teams performed this year.
It’s hard not to be, considering that all three made it out of the FHSAA district tournaments alive and made some noise in the regional rounds. Their players turned in some truly great performances along the way, whether on the pitcher’s mound or at the plate, and the Plant City Times & Observer took notice.
In particular, the Plant City Times & Observer believes three players deserve postseason most valubable player honors for the work they did to help their teams win some of their most important games of the year.
DURANT: JONAH SCOLARO
This selection shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who follows prep baseball in the Tampa Bay area.
If Jonah Scolaro is on the mound for the Durant Cougars, there’s a good chance most baseballs will hit the catcher’s mitt untouched. This trait carried over to the postseason, where Scolaro further established himself as a force to be reckoned with by striking out 38 batters in three starts.
Scolaro’s best game came in the district tournament opener, when he faced the dangerous Riverview Sharks and threw a no-hitter with 13 strikeouts. He was nearly perfect, besides allowing four walks.
He didn’t pitch at all in the district championship game against Plant City, but did go 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI, a run scored and two steals.
The postseason totals allowed Scolaro to close out his season with a 1.23 ERA, 127 strikeouts, 12 earned runs allowed and a legitimate argument for recognition as a top-five pitcher in the Tampa Bay area.
PLANT CITY: CORY COTNOIR
The only non-pitcher to make this list, Cory Cotnoir’s ability to put runs on the scoreboard was one of the Plant City Raiders’ top assets in the playoffs.
The two-sport athlete batted .375 in the Raiders’ three playoff games and was able to create offense in the first two. His best performance came against Bloomingdale in the district tournament: 2-for-4 batting with three RBI, one run scored and a home run. Against Durant in the championship game, Cotnoir was the one who drove in Peyton Collins for the Raiders’ only score of the game.
While he wasn’t able to put a run on the board in Plant City’s 3-2 loss to Steinbrenner, Cotnoir did go 1-for-2 with a walk.
Cotnoir finished 2016 with a .311 batting average, 17 RBI, 15 runs scored and two home runs.
STRAWBERRY CREST: BRANDON HARRIS
Chargers senior Brandon Harris enjoyed a breakout year as the team’s ace and kept that regular-season momentum going with a pair of great starts in the team’s two playoff rounds.
Harris’s best performance came in the regional quarterfinal against Lake Minneola, when he one-hit the Hawks and struck out eight batters. His other quality start, against Wiregrass Ranch in the first round of districts, was nearly as good: Harris allowed just two hits, struck out nine batters and only gave up one walk.
He also did fairly well at the plate in districts, going 2-for-4 with two runs scored against Wiregrass Ranch and 1-for-2 with a walk against Wharton.
The Forest Wildcats gave Harris some trouble in his final postseason start, scoring five of their seven runs in his inning of work, but Crest was able to pick up some momentum late in the game and give itself a chance to pull ahead for the win. Given Harris’s body of work in 2016, it’s reasonable to think that he could have bounced back in another start.
Harris finished the season with a 1.15 ERA, four shutouts, a .144 batting average against, 79 strikeouts and 10 earned runs allowed.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.