Plant City and Durant faced off in back-to-back contests last week, seeing the Raiders come away with a 10-1 win on Wednesday and a 2-0 win on Thursday to sweep the season series and take a commanding lead in the district standings at 5-1 in league play on the year.
After the previously scheduled matchup between the two schools had been rescheduled due to rain, it set up a two game series on consecutive days and a three-game week for both teams. To make things even tougher on the Raiders’ pitching staff, sophomore starter Chase Mobley was unavailable to pitch due to arm soreness.
After three consecutive losses, Plant City jumped back into the win column with a 2-0 victory over 15-4 Lennard on Monday, April 18. Tanner Rollyson, Preston Rogers and Adan Longoria split up the contest, allowing just four hits and three walks while striking out 10 over the course of the shutout performance.
For Durant, they conversely brought an unofficial seven-game win streak into the mid-week series — with one victory over Riverview retroactively forfeited due to an ineligible pitcher exceeding his maximum pitch count — after a big 12-1 victory over Spoto on Tuesday, April 19, ending the game early via mercy rule after five innings and allowing bullpen pitchers Pete Oderio, Grant Greenwell and Dylan Hotz to handle the entirety of the contest, saving starters Torin Byrnes and Blaine Rowland for Wednesday and Thursday.
Byrnes took the mound for Durant on Wednesday as they played host to Plant City for the first matchup, facing Rogers.
Avery Cherry started the action in the bottom of the first with a base hit, followed by a single from Dylan LaPointe to put runners on the corners with one out before senior Oscar Fernandez singled to left, giving the Cougars an early 1-0 lead. Rogers would escape the jam and ultimately settle in as he and Byrnes cruised through the middle innings.
Both teams threatened offensively throughout the evening, but were unable to capitalize. In the top of the second, Plant City put runners on first and third with one out but Byrnes was able to induce a shallow fly ball and a ground out to second to end the inning. In the bottom of the fourth, with two on and two outs, Durant’s Devin Suero roped a line drive deep into center but a leaping grab from center fielder Ray Cowen kept the deficit at just 1-0.
In the top of the fifth, Plant City finally broke through. Anthony Grasso reached first with a base hit to lead off the inning, stealing second after a fly out from Devin Gonzalez to put himself in scoring position with just one out. Colin Shultz then legged out a high chopper to the shortstop for an infield single, putting runners on the corners briefly before senior Jackson VanDerZee tied the game at 1-1 with a line drive single to left.
As the night ended for the two starters, Byrnes finished with seven innings pitched for Durant, allowing just four hits and one earned run while striking out five. For Plant City, Rogers threw six innings, allowing nine hits, one walk and one earned run while striking out five of his own.
In the bottom of the seventh, Rollyson took the mound out of the pen for the Raiders, still without a single earned run allowed on the year. After walking the first batter he faced and hitting the second, he turned around to retire the next three Durant hitters as the game headed to extras.
After three scoreless frames in extra innings, with Rollyson and Durant’s Gavin Florio dueling it out in relief, the floodgates opened for Plant City in the top of the 11th. Coming up huge again, VanDerZee led off the inning with a solo home run to center, his sixth home run of the season, giving the Raiders a 2-01lead.
“It was fun,” VanDerZee said. “Right from the bat, we all knew it was gone.”
Mobley then roped a double into left center and moved to third on a passed ball before scoring on a single from Wyatt Fordham, making it 3-1. Two walks loaded the bases, a shallow flair from Grasso fell in to make it 4-1, a bases loaded walk from Gonzalez made it 5-1 and a monster grand slam to left field off the bat of Shultz made it 9-1 in what felt like an instant. Plant City would ultimately add one more run before Rollyson shut the door and sealed the 10-1 victory.
“That was one of those games we needed,” head coach Mike Fryrear said. “We had a three-game losing streak and came back to beat Lennard, a very, very good team, and then came out like this against Durant… And Durant had their chances, they could have put us away early but our pitchers kept us in the ballgame.”
The win moved Plant City to 14-6 and put Durant at 13-7, while the Raiders sat alone at the top of the district standings with a 4-1 record and the Cougars fell just behind at 3-2.
“It feels like a little college series, that’s what it’s all about,” Fryrear said. “Guys came to play. We had this circled as our battle for first place. We circle this game every year and it’s a rivalry game and we know that they’re a really good team. Hopefully we can carry this over to the next game and keep on hitting. We’ll have our ace going and they’ll have their ace going so it’ll be a fun matchup tomorrow.”
The following day the two teams met at Plant City, with Longoria taking the mound for the Raiders and Rowland for the Cougars. In an all-out dogfight between two of the area’s top pitchers, both threw complete games.
Through five full innings, the contest remained scoreless when Plant City once again took the lead on some late-game heroics.
In the bottom of the sixth, Mobley and Zane Wright finally put the Raiders in position to open the scoring with back-to-back base hits, putting runners on first and second with one out for Grasso. Grasso began the at-bat by trying to bunt the runners over, but was forced to swing away after falling into an 0-2 count and lined a single to left that scored Mobley and gave Plant City a 1-0 lead.
Runners moved to second and third on the throw home and one more run came across for the Raiders as Wright scored on a passed ball, giving Longoria all of the run support he would need as he closed out the complete game shutout and a 2-0 victory.
Rowland had a spectacular outing in his own right, allowing just the one earned run and six hits while striking out 10 over his six innings of work, but Longoria was nearly flawless to put Plant City in position to win. Longoria finished the evening with just three hits allowed and seven strikeouts over his seven innings.
“That’s probably the best that I’ve ever seen him pitch,” Fryrear said. “He’s had some great games here but they just had no clue what was coming at them. We had a gameplan — fastballs in, fastballs away, elevate when we need to — but all-in-all, Longo wanted this game more than anyone in all of Plant City.”
In Mobley’s absence, the Raiders junior pitching trio of Rogers, Rollyson and Longoria combined to allow just 20 hits, seven walks and one total run while striking out 26 over 25 innings in their three wins this week.
“We have three aces now, maybe even four aces,” Fryrear said. “Our pitching is going to carry us a long way. We just have to continue doing the little things right and our pitching will keep us right there.”
Plant City and Durant both wrap up their regular seasons this week. The Raiders beat Blake 15-4 on Tuesday and will host Hillsborough in their season finale on Friday. The Cougars beat Gaither 3-1 on Tuesday and will head to Steinbrenner on Thursday.
With district tournament seeds already set in stone — Plant City finishing as the No. 2 seed and Durant finishing as the No. 3 seed — the two teams will meet once again at Plant City for the district semifinals. The winner of that game will advance to the district championship. Top-seeded Newsome will play the winner of Riverview and Lakewood Ranch for a chance to host the winner of Plant City and Durant in the championship game.