Taravella Defeats South Plantation 12-0 To Pick Up First Win

Taravella sophomore Lino Bravo went 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI and made an unassisted triple play on defense.

The play was over in a matter of seconds.

Lino Bravo’s team had a comfortable six-run lead when the line drive was hit towards him up the middle of the infield.

South Plantation had opened the second inning with back-to-back singles and junior Brian Llorente’s hit looked like it was going to find the outfield grass when Bravo, Taravella’s sophomore second baseman, snagged the ball out of the air, stepped on second and quickly flung the ball to first for the unassisted triple play.

It was just one of those nights for the Trojans, who defeated the Paladins 12-0 in a District 8A-11 match-up Tuesday.

“It was kind of dying as it went up the middle and I was just trying to make the play,” Bravo said. “After I got the out at second and saw the runner off first, I just threw it there and that’s it.”

Bravo also made his presence felt at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a double, an RBI and a run scored.

“That was a big play, because every game so far we’ve got up a couple runs early and the next inning they’ve come back and we give them back the runs,” Trojans coach Jason Stein said. “That was the inning in previous games that snowballed on us and we deflated a little bit, but someone made an excellent play [tonight] and got us out of the inning.”

Taravella (1-3, 1-1) broke open the game early when six of its first seven batters reached base. Senior Andrew Wallach and Chad Corace both smacked two-run doubles in the six-run inning.

Wallach finished 2-for-2 with two doubles and four RBI and senior Greg Feinberg was 2-for-2 with a double.

Manny Pantaleon launched a three-run homer over the right-field fence in the fourth for the 11-0 lead to seal South Plantation’s fate.

“It was good to see the bats going today,” Stein said. “We’re running out with a young staff of mostly ninth, 10th and 11th graders, and they need some experience at the varsity level. They’re getting it. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes good, sometimes bad.”

For South Plantation (0-5, 0-2), coach Dominic Campeau said his young team is still going through some growing pains.

“We’re not winning right now, so the guys are getting a little discouraged, but we’ve just got to keep working. We’ve got to be able to bring what we do offensively in practice into games. We need to be more aggressive. We need to start from scratch and just try to improve in every facet of the game, but it’s a long season and we’ll figure it out,” Campeau said. “But I’m not discouraged. We’re very young. We have talent. We just need to develop it. It’s going to take a while, but we’ll get there.”

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