Hip, hip hooray for the Key West High School softball team.
The players of coach Jason Garcia play at noon on Thursday, May 26 at the Legends Way Ball Field at Clermont for a Final Four Class 4A contest against Lake Wales. Thursday’s winner plays at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 27 for the Florida state championship. Key West carries a 19-3-1 win-loss-tie record, while Lake Wales of Tampa is 20-7.
“Our seven seniors will miss graduation if we win on Thursday,” said Garcia. “But that’s fine with them. We’ll just have their graduation some other time. We leave it up to them, play or graduate.”
If the Lady Conchs win Thursday, they’ll face Clay (17-11), Eustis (25-2) or Deltona (17-3) the following night.
Key West will bring a loaded lineup, headed by center fielder Yahaira Williams and her team-leading batting average for the year of .507, which includes 37 runs batted in and three home runs.
Three other starters are also batting above .400. That’s Isabella Perez at .471, Marina Goins, .446, and Miesha Hernandez, .405. Above .300 are Caroline Smith at .372 and Madison Gonzalez at .344.
The other starters are Ty Cervantes, .243; Chloe Knowles, .239, and Scarlet Niles, .220.
And, of course, pitcher Chloe Gilday, who has pitched complete games in every tournament game and who will get the call Thursday, said coach Garcia. “We’ll go with who has gotten us here,” he said, adding that he’s excited waiting for the game.
The seven seniors are Williams, Perez, Goins, Knowles, Gonzales, Montunique Van Staden and Emily Bracher.
Key West’s success this season comes as no surprise. Followers of the team saw its talent before the season started, headed by Williams and Perez, who were All-State a year ago.
Key West took care of the District 16-4A championship by defeating St. Brendan, 2-0, in a two-team showdown with both teams advancing to the state playoffs.
After that, Key West defeated LaBelle, 15-2, in a regional quarterfinal game that was ended by the mercy rule after six innings. Then, it was Bonita Springs, losing 11-1 to Key West in five innings of a regional semifinal game, again by mercy rule. St. Brendan was again the opponent, this time in the regional finals, but this time in five mercy innings, 11-1. And now, it’s onto the state semifinal.
THE PGA GOLF TOURNAMENT was an exciting sports event last weekend. First, I have absolutely no objection to Tiger Woods pulling out of the tournament after playing three rounds. If you watched him on Saturday, you saw a tired, hurt, battered player who could barely make it around the course.
I thought he should withdraw even before he did so. This was not the Tiger Woods we know. This was a player of another generation, trying to hold off retirement. Woods should not be battling to make Friday’s cut. He does not belong with the early starters on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Otherwise, it was a very exciting tournament. The Chilean Mito Pereira held the lead most of
Sunday, At the sixth hole, Will Zalatoris from the United States had caught him, only to drop to three strokes behind after having to putt from the cart path.
Then came Justin Thomas, who had already finished his round and could only advance up the leaderboard if Pereira made mistakes. And that’s exactly what happened.
Pereira sent his ball into the water near the 18th hole. That double bogey dropped Pereira out of contention and sent Thomas and Zalatoris to a three-hole playoff.
Thomas birdied the first two holes and set a record as he came from seven strokes back to win the PGA Championship on the final day.
Pereira’s double bogey cost him a ton of money. Thomas won $2.7 million. Zalatoris still took home $1.6 million and Pereira won $870,000. Not bad for four days of golf.
