ORANGE PARK - St. Johns Country Day School's attempt to defend last year's Class 2A state baseball title fell to a 6-2 Class 1A loss to Canterbury in Ft. Myers on Thursday.
With the Spartans giving up four runs in the first three innings with a series of mishaps; a wild pitch, a hit by pitch batter and a field error, St. Johns fell behind 4-0 after three innings.
With the Spartans unable to throw Brayden Harris on the mound after the state semifinal win by Harris the night before; a 2-0 win over Brito, St. Johns coach Tom Lucas was relegated to using five pitchers to keep the Canterbury lead from increasing with sophomore Ethan Bissell the starter taking the loss after four innings and the four runs.
St. Johns had plenty of opportunities to put runs on the scoreboard and finally got their first in the fifth behind three singles; from Madden Williams, TJ Sunderhaus and Hunter Rodgers before Harris hit a monster fly ball that could have tied the game on the St. Johns campus, but fell into Canterbury's left fielder's glove to just finish as a long sacrifice fly with a run, 4-1.
With Mason Schnell on the mound in the top of the sixth getting three quick outs, the lure of a typical Spartans' comeback was eminating in Hammond Stadium.

In the bottom of the sixth, Jonas Wells singled to excite the Spartan dugout with a baserunner and just one out, but Canterbury pitcher Anthony Tenuta struck out Chandler Dantzler and got Williams to pop out.

St. Johns had to keep Canterbury at bay into the seventh to possibly issue another walk off heroic finish as they did last year, but Camden Brown, on the mound, gave up a single and hit a batter then walked a batter to load the bases.
A wild pitch got run five and a close call at first base on a hard grounder to George Gilliand with a late throw to first scored the game to 6-1. Preston Cole squashed any more runs with a double play grounder ball to end the inning.

Tenuto stayed on the mound for Canterbury, struck out Sunderhaus, but walked Rodgers to emit some worry in the Cougar dugout. Cole struck out on a called strike before Harris slipped a single past third base to keep the Spartans alive. Gilliand got tagged with a no-swing called third strike to end the game.

For Canterbury, the Class 1A title was the fourth title for the program in the past decade with a three in a row string in 2016-2017-2018 in Class 3A. Canterbury got a key double play in the fourth off a Wells line drive that caught Gilliand straying from first base after a walk.