Winter Springs Walks Off Charlotte To Reach 5A Final
Four seasons ago the Winter Springs Bears reached the state tournament for the first time in program history. On Monday, the team raised the bar even higher by earning its first state Final Four victory. In an exciting and very tight ball game, the Bears prevailed with a 5-4 win over the Charlotte Tarpons, in a Class 5A state semifinal at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers.
Edward Risano sent a grounder through the left side of the defense and Ryland Sander raced around third base and slid across the plate ahead of the relay throw to deliver the Bears the walk-off victory in the bottom of the seventh. It capped a back-and-forth game that saw four lead changes and two ties, in a close contest from start to finish.
“I’m just trying to stay short and drive something that’s in the zone, preferably a fastball,” Risano said. “But at the end of the day, I knew that the guy behind me, in his last at bat he hit a double off the wall, he’s going to pick me up if I don’t come through. I just had the confidence in myself and my teammates to put that together and do that.”
Sander got the final rally going by reaching base on an infield chopper deep to the left side with one out in the bottom of the seventh. After a wild pitch allowed Sander to advance into scoring position, Robert Mungovan was intentionally walked to set up a force-play opportunity. But instead Risano found a hole to deliver the winning run and send his team to its first state championship game.
“I’m very proud of our boys,” Bears Manager Mike Bradley said. “Trust is earned, and these guys have earned that. We do a lot of things together as a team, as a unit and as a program, from lifting at six o’clock in the morning before school, and having baseball class, and off-season conditioning. These guys all get together on the weekends, and we had a spaghetti dinner at my house over Spring Break. We do a lot of things together, so that trust has been earned over the last four years. We’re going to continue what we do, and the boys came out on top today, which was really awesome.”
After both sides played a scoreless draw through the first three innings, Charlotte jumped ahead with a bang in the top of the fourth. Senior Landon Davidson nearly crushed a home run on the first pitch of the inning, yet although it had the distance it sailed foul and out of play. But on the very next pitch Davidson barreled it up and he slugged a solo home run over the left field fence.
“That was my fault on the home run,” Coach Bradley said. “I called a fastball inside, and I tried to outsmart the 17-year old boy and he outsmarted me. He did what he’s supposed to do.”
Momentum on their side, the Tarpons kept it going to add another run. Wesley Stines and Adrian Moreno both singled to right to put runners on the corners, and Caden Speciale executed a suicide-squeeze bunt that brought Stines racing across the plate.
“We knew we are never out of a game,” Charlotte Manager Lavell Cudjo said. “We are in every game, with our lineup and with our pitching. We’ve played a pretty good and competitive schedule, so I knew it was going to be a matter of time to get to their pitcher. We were able to make adjustments at the plate and we were really excited. It just didn’t fall our way today.”
Winter Springs (24-6) answered immediately with three runs in the bottom of the fourth to take the lead. Owen Swanson drew a lead-off walk and Tyler Kenast followed with a double to left, and Xavier Rodriguez got the Bears on the scoreboard with an RBI groundout. Sander and Chance Baisden both walked to load the bases, and a wild pitch allowed Kenast to come in and tie the game. After Risano walked to fill the bases again, Brandon Curl delivered a sac-fly RBI to put Winter Springs ahead.
“I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking; I just hunted the fastball,” Curl admitted. “I knew it was coming. It was a little in and I turned on it and drove it, same as usual.”
But Charlotte punched right back with two more runs in the top of the fifth to chase Bears starter Tripp Rosenberger and move back in front with a 4-3 advantage. Aiden Long doubled to left with one out, but was then erased at third base off a bunt from Dom Giglio. Landon Davidson was intentionally walked, and Stines made them pay by rolling an RBI single past the shortstop to plate Giglio and tie the game. Sander came on in relief, but Moreno greeted him by sending a liner to right field to get Davidson racing around third and grabbing back the lead by coming in ahead of the relay throw.
Despite allowing the hit that surrendered the lead, Sander was lights out in relief. He did not allow another base runner the rest of the way, earning the victory by picking up the final seven outs. He struck out three.
“I knew the game wasn’t over. This is a team that never gives up,” Sander said. “I knew if I kept pitching and trusting my coach to hit my spots, I knew it was all going to play out well.”
Winter Springs evened things back up in the sixth. Baisden led off with a base hit and was replaced by courtesy-runner Robert Mungovan, who came around to score when Curl bounced an RBI double off the left field wall.
“He lost his feel for his fastball, and when you fall behind, you’ve got to feed hitters,” Coach Cudjo said. “He was a reliever who is usually a starter, and he just needed more time to warm up. Any good high school player can hit a fastball, and when we fell behind that was what we had to do, was feed them fastballs, and they took advantage of it.”
Rosenberger did not factor in the decision. He allowed four runs on six hits and three walks, while recording six strikeouts in four-and-two-third innngs. But the team acknowledged how valuable his contribution throughout the playoffs has been.
“Tripp did his thing, and his teammates had his back,” Coach Bradley said. “Tripp’s been the guy for us on the mound all year, and in every three-game series there was no question who was going to get the ball. The cool thing is, the front of the lineup is doing something, then the back of the lineup isn’t, and the next time through the front of the lineup’s not doing something and the middle is picking them up. It truly is a team effort each and every game. You saw how many changes we made, pinch-runners, pinch-hitters, bringing guys in defensively and pulling guys out, and switching pitchers. That’s what we’ve done the entire year; everybody gets a taste. It’s been a recipe for success.”
Making a return trip to the state tournament was a big deal for the Bears, but they were not content to celebrate just being there. They stayed true to the process that brought them there, and that made it that much more enjoyable.
“You just want them to compete and have fun,” Coach Bradley said. “That’s been our motto all year, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Winter Springs enjoyed a huge sendoff when they boarded the bus to leave for the state tournament, and the excitement and encouragement from all the fans back home meant a lot to the team.
“It was great to experience everyone wanting you to win. I just love that I get to do it with some of my best friends,” Sander said.
Now the team has the chance to do something it has never done before, in bringing home a state championship. No boys team has accomplished this feat at the school, and this group is as capable as any before it to change that history.
“We’ve got a senior-laden team, with 12 seniors on the team. We had a really good year last year, and then this year the guys kind of picked up where we left off. They had some unfinished business,” Coach Bradley said. “At the end of the day, I would say they are a resilient team. We’ve been down, and last week at Wesley Chapel in Game Three we got down 6-2 in the second inning, but these kids came running off the field and said, ‘let’s go’. They were committed to playing one pitch at a time, and they did it. That was the battle cry in the dugout was to be competitive and take it one pitch at a time. You never know what can happen. If you do that as a coach, you are proud of your boys, no matter if you win or lose.”
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