LAKE CITY - St. Johns Country Day School baseball coach Tom Lucas may be in a sort of lull in his season to defend last year's state champion season, but the optimism must come from the dugout.
"We are pretty banged up and have a handful of key guys injured; pitcher Austin Strathman being one of them and it will take a few of the younger kids to step up," said Lucas, after his Spartans commited more errors than his batting lineup got hits in St. Johns' 11-3 loss to 5A-Columbia, a 2023 Final Four finisher, on Tuesday, March 18 in Lake City. "Sometimes a game like this will wake up a team and with No. 1 1A-Neumann High out of Naples (10-3, 2A region semifinalist last year); St. Johns (10-5) No. 2, coming to town on Thursday, we have to wake up pretty fast."
Lucas' lament comes after an uncharacteristic four game losing streak by the defending Class 2A champions; 13-5 to 4A-Houston High of Tennessee, 17th ranked in Tennessee last year; 4-3 to (13-1) 3A-Bishop Verot out of Fort Myers, a 3A Final Four finisher; 2-1 in eight innings to 7A-Winter Park, a region finalist in 2023, and last night's Columbia game.
St. Johns got their three runs in the first inning off singles to TJ Sunderhaus and Hunter Rodgers and walks to Brayden Harris and Nick Bowden, but could generate no more runs througout the game.
"We were hitting the ball to their best guys," said Lucas. "With our pitching staff hurting, we need to be the one scoring runs. We didn't tonight."
With Columbia getting just four strikeouts for the game, Lucas' analysis of the batting lineup was spot on, but his defensive effort was also lacking in precision as he stated the obvious five errors in the field, mainly the infield and at inopportunistic times as his five pitchers on the night; Mason Schnell, Silas Magdalin, Madden Williams, Camden Brown and Chandler Dantzler all put more pitches into the dirt in front of Rodgers at catcher.
Williams got the start and lasted two innings with scoreless work before an error at third base by Brown followed by two walks, two singles, a batter hit by a pitch and a long fly ball put Columbia up 5-3 in a cacophony of bad luck.
Brown got on the mound in the fourth and got hit with his own third base error, but Rodgers shot a laser pick off to second base that ended the inning.
Brown gave up three singles and a walk plus hit a batter to up Columbia's lead to 7-3 in fifth inning.
St. Johns looked to put some runs on the board with George Gilliand and Sunderhaus both walking, but Rodgers whiffed.
Two more errors at third base; by two different St. Johns players, forced Lucas to flip players to try and stop the bleed, but Columbia got two more walks off Madalin and a single to finish the scoring at 11-3.
St. Johns got a Preston Cole single in the seventh but two grounders and a strikeout to Williams to end the game.
In other games around the county, Middleburg (7-7) blasted two homers in the first inning; solo by Logan Alessi and a two run by Alex Garcia to go up 5-0 en route to a 19-2 lashing on Old Plank Christian Academy on Monday. Liam Cooper also hit a dinger in the third after series of doubles from five players; Alessi, Ethan Karaim, Johnny De Antonis, Nico Hill and Cole Conte with De Antonis coming back up to bat for a second homer in the same inning for the overwhelming offensive explosion finished at 19-2.