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Ruling Sends 2 Teams To Regionals

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By NICHOLAS J.E. MURRAY The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 30, 2008

When the Bloomingdale and Palma Ceia/Interbay/Tampa Bay junior softball teams arrived for the state championship game in Viera last week, they were met by a ruling from Little League headquarters.

The representative from South Carolina had pulled out of the Southern Regional tournament, meaning both teams were going to get to go to this weekend's tournament in Fort Myers.

The only catch? They would have to put off determining a state champion.
Little League rules state that a team has to have won its last game to move on to the next tournament. If a state championship game was played, one team wouldn't be able to make the trip. So their semifinal wins - Bloomingdale's 4-3 win against Callahan Little League from North Florida and the combined South Tampa squad's 3-1 win against Naples - stood as their last games, making both teams eligible for the tournament.

Both teams celebrated together, and are excited by the opportunity ahead. Combined team manager Kevin Franklin said he was particularly pleased for four of his players, Kaitlyn Steckel, Danielle LeRoy, Hannah Przlowski and Paige Pitisci, who advanced to regionals for the first time. Franklin and other members of this team went to regionals last year in the major division, so getting to share other players' first trip to regionals is going to add to the experience for the team.

"It's so exciting," Franklin said. "They've been in the state finals every single year, and lost by a run every single year. It really is a unique experience once you get to regionals. That's something that's big for me, that I want them to experience that."

Both teams will be in separate pools to open the tournament, and if they meet in either the semifinals or the final, it will also count as a state championship game. If they don't meet as a part of the tournament, a separate state championship game will be played in Fort Myers. Bloomingdale manager Mark Braddy said he expects the competition his team and Palma Ceia/Interbay/Tampa Bay got at the state championship will be a great preparation for this weekend.

"We saw a lot of character in our team develop," Braddy said. "At this point, the teams are all good, so it's going to be a question of who's closer to perfect, who's able to overcome the challenges within the game."

Experience Pays Off For Citrus Park Softball

Some members of Citrus Park Little League's Big League softball team have been down the road to regionals before. Four of them, in fact, are World Series winners.

Morgan Grove, Khrystyne Ely, Trisha DeBold and Morgan McGuire all were members of the Citrus Park team that won the Senior League World Series in 2005. After a 7-5 win against St. Petersburg Little League on Sunday to win the state title, Citrus Park will try to reach Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend in Dunedin.

Citrus Park scored five runs in the fourth inning of the championship game, with consecutive two-out hits by Brittany Johnson, McGuire, Chelsea Ogilvie and Mya Anderson proving crucial. St. Petersburg came back with runs in three straight innings, but Citrus Park's experience showed as it staved off all three without falling behind.

That experience is something Grove said the team can fall back on when it does face tight situations.

"We all know what it takes," Grove said. "The ones won the World Series, we know what it takes to get there, and we know how hard we have to work in order to get there."

Citrus Park manager Al Bowman also was the manager for the World Series team, and was pleased his team got three competitive games from St. Petersburg. Citrus Park won their opening game 5-4, before St. Petersburg came back to win 1-0 in nine innings.

"Some of the games we played up to this point were lopsided, so it was good to get some competition and actually lose a game," Bowman said. "We'd love to be able to win by five or six runs, but the fact that they were close games, we held on and pulled out will definitely help the team, because there are going to be some tough teams in Dunedin."

Goalie Ball Headed To National Camp

This time three years ago, Black Watch soccer club's Emily Ball wasn't a goalkeeper. This week, she gets the chance to show why she should be one for the U.S. national development program.

Ball was among those selected for the U.S. Soccer National Development ID Camp in Carson, Calif., after impressing coaches at the Region III Olympic Development Program tryouts in Alabama last week. Ball's first experience between the posts came out of the blue when she was training with her club team.

"We needed a goalkeeper on our team," Ball said. "I was doing it in practice just so we would have a goalkeeper. Then my coach put me in in a game, and I really liked the position."

That led to Ball taking up the position full time. With coaching from Richard Chisholm, who Ball credits a lot for her development, she is now on the verge of achieving the same feat as clubmate Atsouh Ayah did last year when he was named to the boys national team pool.

For Bell, to have come this far this fast is very exciting, and she is looking forward to the chance to work out and continue to develop in California.

"I'm always working, always practicing, always training as much as I can to be the best I can be now," Ball said. "It's going to be a great opportunity. I'm going to get a lot of looks from national coaches. It's going to be a good experience."

Nicholas J.E. Murray can be reached at (813) 259-8243 or nmurray@tampatrib.com.

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