Coral Springs Charter Picks Up Key District Victory

Built up of mostly seniors, it was a Coral Springs Charter underclassman that stole the spotlight in a district showdown Tuesday night. In a battle of Panthers vs Panthers, Coral Springs Charter silenced the bats of Pine Crest in a 9-0 triumph.

Freshman Sammy Guillorme started his first varsity game of the season at shortstop, but in the first two innings of play he looked like a four year veteran. Guillorme’s defensive display Wednesday was evident, turning two double plays, and assisting on a relay from left to third to force an out.

“It was good today, a little nervous. I was nervous when I was up with the bases loaded, I didn’t want to strike out. Than it would have been two outs, and would have been a bad situation for us. I got a pitch outside and went with it,” said Guillorme, who had a big hit in the game as well. “It was fun and exciting and I’m glad we won.”

To start the game, Pine Crest’s Zack Kone singled to set up Guillorme and Charter’s first double play of the night. Guillorme then fielded a ball hit up the middle, swiped his foot across the bag and fired to first. In the second, with one out and a runner on first a ground ball was hit to short, where Guillorme started an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

First year Manager George Mianowski has worked with his team’s focus on small-ball and right-side hitting through the start of the season. In the second inning Wednesday, Charter made coach proud when they turned practice drills into game-day performances.

“We really worked on our approach at practice. We stressed to the players about the approach and how we’re not going to hit balls out of the park,” said Mianowski. “We need to look backside a lot more, and let the ball get a little deeper. They believe in what we’re doing here and in practice. A lot of our hits today went the other way; guys were doing a great job of seeing the baseball and squaring it up. All the credit tonight goes to them.”

After a leadoff double and a walk, Coral Springs Charter had an opportunity to score early in the home half of the second. Scott Stolberg laid down a sacrifice bunt which led to everyone advancing safely. With one out, and the bases loaded Guillorme stepped into the box for his first time in a varsity uniform. Showing his superstar potential, he banged a triple down the right-field line and cleared the bases to give Coral Springs Charter a 4-0 lead.

Behind a near-perfect defensive performance, and an inspiring hitting performance, Tommy Romero kept Pine Crest off the scoreboard and bases in five and two-third innings of work. In the fall, Romero had some minor setbacks with an injury, but now on a limited pitch count Romero is still able to contribute quality innings for a team with big aspirations.

“Tommy is a silent leader, he lets his physical work do his talking. Again today another great game against another really good ball club that he competed and threw the ball well for us,” said Mianowski. “Our pitching has been solid all year, but Tommy has done a real good job. He’s coming off an injury in the fall and he’s been working back into it. He is on a 75 pitch count per game, and he knows that and still goes out there and does whatever he can to help his team stay in ball game, compete and win.”

Romero picked up the win for Coral Springs Charter (6-1, 4-1) and moved them atop of a gut-wrenching district. In four of his five plus innings of work, Romero faced the three batter minimum.

In the fourth, Coral Springs Charter extended their lead. After back-to-back, two-out walks, Brandon Laboy lifted a ball deep to right that one-hopped off the wall as he legged out a two-run triple to give Charter a 7-0 lead. Laboy fell a home run shy of the cycle Wednesday, going 3-for-4 with a double, triple and two RBIs.

Dual-sport senior Joe McChrystal, quarterback and catcher, extended the lead to 8-0 on a RBI double. Running for the catcher all evening was Emilio Valdez, who scored twice for Coral Springs Charter.

The bats have disappeared for Pine Crest as of late. After back-to-back performances of 11 runs or more, Pine Crest has scored a total of nine runs in their last three games.

“We didn’t execute today, we have a very good offensive team and we didn’t swing the bats,” said Pine Crest Manager Ryan Shealy. “We didn’t play defense very well at all, and that has been the ongoing theme for us for the last three games. We haven’t played defense very well at all. We didn’t have a very good approach tonight; ordinarily we’re pretty solid in our approach at the plate. Tonight we weren’t.”

With the season still young and a roster built of veterans, Pine Crest isn’t panicking just yet. With a couple days off Pine Crest (3-4, 2-2 District 4A-14) will look to change it up and get back on a winning track.

“We have to change a lot, in everything. We are fortunate we have an older group, I don’t think they are panicked, but with that said a lot of stuff has to change. The way we play the game has to change,” said Shealy.

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