Herrick stays hot at the plate, on the mound
By STEVE JACKSON
The Riverview Sharks varsity baseball team (15-7) had a non-district home game against Leto (14-7) after press time on April 30 and before starting the second season next week.
Riverview faces longtime rival Bloomingdale in the opening round of the 8A District 6 playoffs. The one-loss-and-out game is Tuesday, May 6, at 4 p.m. at the diamond of Plant City High. Bloomingdale is 14-7 overall and tied for second with the Sharks in District 6 regular standings, both at 5-3, having split the two season games. Host Plant City is 21-2 overall and finished 7-1, atop District 6 in regular season.
The Sharks will be trying to end the regular season on a winning note after dropping last Saturday’s hard fought game to Alonso, 7-6, at home. No sooner had Riverview put up a 4-spot in the bottom of the fifth to take a comfortable but short-lived 6-3 lead over the visiting Ravens, when Alonso erupted for a 4-spot of its own in the top of the sixth. No one scored after that, and Alonso escaped with the win to move its overall record to 11-9. Alonso sits in first place in 9A District 8, barely ahead of Newsome. The Sharks’ Dillon Besnier and Tyberius Correa smashed back-to-back homers, and Macalister Jorgensen had 2 hits in the losing effort.
Previously, Riverview had built a four-game winning streak, doubling up Steinbrenner 10-5 at Lutz and shutting out Armwood 9-0 at Seffner.
In the Steinbrenner non-district victory, the Sharks exploded for a 7-run seventh to take the come-from-behind win, after trailing 4-3 going into the last inning. Jorgensen smoked a bases-clearing double to spark the winning rally. Correa hurled four solid innings, and reliable reliever Kyle Knees held the Warriors at bay. Andrew Jrolf was hot at the plate with 3 hits. Also contributing offensively with a hit were Noah Andis, Zach Hawkins and Correa. Ben Migliarese banged out a two-bagger.
In the win over 7A District 9 Armwood, it was once again Sharks’ senior Brendan Herrick,E pitching a shutout and going a perfect 4 for 4 at the plate with 4 RBI. Have a night, Bubba! Migliarese came in to get the last 2 outs after Herrick had struck out 9 and walked only 1. Also recording base hits for Riverview were Jorgensen, Besnier, Hawkins, Correa and Adrian Malave.