[ad_1]
This previous yr levied numerous recollections within the native sports activities scene — from shattered information and profession achievements for people and groups, to a number of main occasions and showcases within the space.
Here’s a look again at a few of the moments in sports activities in 2021, from throughout Pasco and Hillsborough counties, in The Laker/Lutz Information protection space.
(That is Half One in every of a two-part sequence.)
Land O’ Lakes Little League celebrates fiftieth anniversary
The beginning of every Little League season usually elicits a heightened degree of nostalgia.
With spring within the air, youth of all ages and abilities partake in America’s favourite pastime, testing their mettle on the mound, on the plate and within the discipline.
For Land O’ Lakes Little League, this yr’s Opening Day festivities took on added significance: The group celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on Feb. 27, on the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Advanced, off Collier Parkway.
The group really fashioned again in 1967 on the Land O’ Lakes Neighborhood Heart (now Heritage Park) off U.S. 41, however it didn’t obtain its first Little League constitution till 1971.
The native league has come a great distance since its preliminary startup — boasting upwards of 800 girls and boys, ages 4 to 16, enjoying baseball and softball throughout 10 fields.
The massive ballfield took middle stage within the league’s season-opening occasion.
Groups from all age divisions have been unfold throughout the infield and outfield, signaling the league’s endurance and sustained progress.
First pitches have been precisely thrown from veteran baseball gamers, as effectively softball Little League gamers.
Native gamers sang the nationwide anthem and browse the league pledge.
There was the revealing, too, of a framed fiftieth anniversary “golden ticket” issued and signed by the Little League Worldwide Headquarters, which is predicated in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
The fantastic thing about the group is it’s a leisure format.
It welcomes the novice participant that will by no means make an all-star workforce or play highschool ball, to others who’ve the potential to earn school scholarships and perhaps play professionally sometime.
“I feel each child ought to play Little League,” Land O’ Lakes Little League President Gary Gwinn instructed The Laker/Lutz Information.
NBA hopefuls showcase hoops abilities in Wesley Chapel
Pasco County and the larger Tampa Bay area isn’t actually recognized for its basketball prowess, however that status, or lack thereof, could quickly change.
Pursuing goals of enjoying skilled basketball, a big group of athletes dropped by Wesley Chapel, of all locations.
In early June, some 50 Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA) draft-eligible hopefuls descended upon the world to showcase their athleticism and hoops abilities within the inaugural Tampa Bay Professional Mix (TBPC), on the AdventHealth Sports activities Area on the Wiregrass Ranch Sports activities Campus of Pasco County.
The elite-level hoopers — many from recognizable excessive and mid-major NCAA Division I applications — dribbled, dunked, jumped, shot and handed their manner into the eyes and impressions of assorted NBA and worldwide coaches and scouts.
A number of names could also be acquainted from deep runs within the 2021 NCAA Males’s Basketball March Insanity event, similar to College of Southern California guard Tahj Eaddy, College of Houston ahead Justin Gorham, and College of Loyola-Chicago middle Cameron Krutwig, amongst others.
The three-day occasion featured drills, video games (5-on-5, 2-on-2 and 3-on-3), athletic testing and measurements, in addition to a 3-point shootout, dunk contest and extra.
The participant choice committee was led by ESPN tv analyst Fran Fraschilla and BasketballNews.com NBA Draft analyst Matt Babcock, who have been there to judge gamers through the weekend.
The competitors got here collectively in a matter of about six weeks, in search of to duplicate the Virginia-based Portsmouth Invitational Match, a long-running hoops mix occasion canceled a second-straight yr as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
Quade Inexperienced was the main scorer on the College of Washington this previous season, at 15.4 factors per sport.
Like others, it was his first time getting into the Wiregrass Sports activities Campus.
He got here away impressed with the state-of-the-art digs.
“It is a stunning gymnasium,” Inexperienced mentioned, in an interview with The Laker/Lutz Information. “Lot of nice gamers right here, nice folks round you, too. They’ve acquired connections. Life connections, too, for the long term.”
Zephyrhills runner competes in U.S. Olympic trials
Evan Miller’s dash for a spot on Group USA for the Tokyo Summer time Olympics could have come up quick — however it was nonetheless an expertise most athletes can solely ever dream about.
The Zephyrhills athlete on June 25 competed within the U.S. Olympic observe and discipline trials on the legendary Hayward Discipline in Eugene, Oregon.
Miller — then a rising senior at College of South Carolina — clocked 21.04 seconds within the first-round warmth of the boys’s 200-meter sprint, ending twenty third general.
He competed in the identical warmth in opposition to different broadly recognized skilled sprinters, together with Terrance Laird and Jaron Flourney, amongst others.
The competitors was televised reside nationally on NBC Sports activities Community.
Miller’s trials mark was a shade off his private better of 20.50 seconds — which he recorded on the Weems Baskin Relays hosted on-campus at South Carolina in late March; he wound up incomes second-team NCAA All-American honors through the season, too.
Miller was one in all about 30 sprinters nationwide who both certified or accepted an invite, and declared for the boys’s 200-meter trials occasion.
From there, the highest three males’s 200-meter finishers at trials earned spots on the U.S. Olympic workforce — Noah Lyles (first, 19.74 seconds), Kenny Bednarek (second, 19.78) and Erriyon Knighton (third, 19.84).
Whereas upset together with his personal trials output general, Miller relished the chance so only a few earn — not to mention coming off a 2020 observe season hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Throughout, it was a very good expertise,” Miller instructed The Laker/Lutz Newspaper. “It was sort of surreal that I used to be there with the highest athletes within the nation. It was only a actually good feeling. I used to be sort of attempting to take all of it in, however I additionally couldn’t like imagine it on the identical time.”
Earlier than school, Miller had made a reputation for himself as a sprinter at Zephyrhills Christian Academy.
His senior yr, he received the Class 1A particular person crown 100-meter sprint (10.75) on the 2018 FHSAA State Monitor & Discipline Championships. He additionally was a leg of the college’s 4×100 relay workforce that received back-to-back state crowns in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Locals athletes taken in 2021 MLB Draft
It’s not unusual for not less than a couple of ballplayers from space excessive faculties and faculties to be taken within the Main League Baseball (MLB) first-year participant draft.
The yr 2012 was no completely different, as 5 native athletes from The Laker/Lutz Information protection space have been taken within the nationally televised draft, which spanned 20 rounds (and 612) picks from July 11 by means of July 13:
- Sunlake Excessive/College of Florida pitcher Tommy Mace (Cleveland Indians/Guardians, Comp B, 69th general)
- Wharton Excessive shortstop Zach Ehrhard (Boston Purple Sox, thirteenth spherical, 376th general)
- Gaither Excessive shortstop A.J. Graham (Pittsburgh Pirates, 18th spherical, 523rd general)
- Saint Leo College left-handed pitcher Jimmy Burnette (Toronto Blue Jays, 18th spherical, 543rd general)
- Gaither Excessive/College of Texas third baseman Cam Williams (Kansas Metropolis Royals, nineteenth spherical, 559th general)
Each participant, apart from Ehrhard opted to signal with their drafted workforce, for varied greenback figures.
Mace — the best choice from the area people — inked with the Indians (now Guardians) for a $1.1 million signing bonus; Graham signed with the Pirates for $125,000; Burnette signed with Blue Jays for $50,000; and, Williams signed with the Royals for $25,000.
Ehrhard, in the meantime, will play collegiate baseball at NCAA Division I Oklahoma State College, majoring in utilized train science with a concentrate on energy and conditioning. He was this yr’s recipient of the 2021 Wade Boggs Athletic Achievement Award, which honors a highschool baseball participant in Hillsborough County on the premise of excellent athletic, scholastic and neighborhood achievements.
(Whereas barely exterior our protection space in west Pasco County, Fivay Excessive/College of Mississippi product Gunnar Hoglund went within the first spherical (nineteenth general) to the Blue Jays. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound right-hander from Hudson finally signed with the workforce for slightly below $3.25 million.)
Nationwide champion returns dwelling to show aspiring gamers
Land O’ Lakes native Shannon Saile was part of historical past — guiding the College of Oklahoma girls’s softball workforce to the 2021 NCAA Division I nationwide title, serving as one in all its prime senior pitchers.
Along with her adorned athletic profession in tow, Saile’s subsequent main process was organizing a sequence of fastpitch softball clinics to coach the following era of youth standouts.
To do this, the 23-year-old returned to her central Pasco hometown and set foot on the identical park ballfields that cast a pathway for myriad athletic accomplishments.
The upstart Shannon Saile Pitching Clinic was held on July 25 on the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Advanced, dwelling to Land O’ Lakes Little League.
About 30 ladies — ages 8 to fifteen — took half on a steamy Sunday, keen to absorb steerage from Saile and different broadly recognized pitching instructors and volunteers.
With Saile’s tutelage, younger campers sharpened their fastballs and secondary choices like changeups, by means of arm path mechanics and leg drive strategies, in addition to varied velocity, agility and steadiness drills.
“I simply hope that I can educate them the inspiration of pitching, as a result of it’s far more necessary than simply getting on the market and throwing pitches,” Saile defined to The Laker/Lutz Information. “The drills are tremendous necessary, as a result of they assist me develop my energy and my confidence in my pitches.”
Moreover studying newfound softball strategies, campers additionally had a chance to get signed autographs and take footage with Saile, who’s turn into a family title within the sports activities world. She was invited to ESPN’s nationally televised 2021 ESPY Awards, for being a part of top-of-the-line moments from the yr in sports activities.
Saile goes down as one of the vital completed — if not most completed — fastpitch softball gamers to ever come out of Land O’ Lakes Excessive Faculty and the larger Tampa Bay space.
As a Gator, she amassed 517 strikeouts and a profession 1.76 ERA in 4 varsity seasons from 2013 to 2016, additionally compiling a mixed 41 wins, 31 full video games, 11 shutouts and 5 no-hitters.
The development to the faculty ranks likewise went swimmingly for the 5-foot-7 right-hander.
Saile started her Division I softball profession at Florida Worldwide College, discovering quick success with a pair of sub-2.00 ERA seasons within the circle, earlier than transferring to Oklahoma.
As a redshirt senior this previous season, Saile posted a formidable 1.70 ERA and 1.06 WHIP whereas being second on the workforce in wins (17), innings pitched (100.1), full video games (six), and strikeouts (132).
Revealed December 29, 2021
[ad_2]
Source link
