ORANGE PARK - A weeklong road trip to the Florida panhandle did not bring surfing and sunshine for the St. Johns Country Day School baseball team, but, maybe more critical, an eye-opening look into a mirror.

"I think the boys understand that we have to play tough teams to see how good we really are," said St. Johns Country Day School coach Tom Lucas. "We try to set up our schedule so anything we see in the playoffs doesn't surprise us. We had our opportunities against these teams that were all state champions (Texas, Alabama) and nationally ranked. We saw that mistakes at this level are costly. There is nothing in our state playoffs that will match this level of play."

St. Johns opened their season with a 3-3 tie with Episcopal then ran off a string of 10 wins before a 10-8 loss to Trinity Christian Academy was to start a road trip of self-testing.

First on the docket was the Bennett School out of Houston, Texas, with a 15-4 season record and a No. 1 ranking in all of Texas against a 17.6 strength of schedule. The Bennett School is dubbed an "elite 18U baseball prep program," designed to prepare student athletes targeting NCAA Division I and professional paths.

"The Bennett team has the entire lineup going to Division I programs," Lucas said. "On top of that, the wind was blowing out like 25 miles per hour and that made routine fly balls go out of the park."

That being said, the Bennett School does have losses to South Walton (12-3, ranked fifth in the USA, fourth in Florida, first in Class 3A) and Farragut out of Knoxville, Kentucky, (twice) (5-1, 32-11 state champion last year with an 18.11 SOS, top ranked in Kentucky).

For St. Johns, with the Bennett School first on their road trip, then the IMG Academy Varsity Ascenders team (12-1, ranked third in USA), then Winter Park and finally Alabama No. 1 Hartselle (35-8 last year, 6A champions), the trip was a test of character.

"The guys battled, we had some unlucky breaks, and we had the Bennett School and IMG in a double header; that's crazy," Lucas said. "We threw a lot of young arms on the mound to try and find our three, four guys. Brayden (Harris) and Ethan (Bissell) both threw well against some tough bats."

Against Trinity Christian, before the road trip, the Spartans won the first of the two 4-3 with pitcher Harris whiffing 10 batters. St. Johns opened the fifth with Preston Cole triple and a handful of singles and errors to score four runs and take the 4-3 lead.

In the second game, won 10-8 by Trinity, St. Johns fell behind 7-3 into the fourth, scored five in the fifth with singles by Chandler Dantzler, Hunter Rodgers and Jones and a double from K Johns. Trinity answered with their own barrage off two doubles and two errors to regain the lead 10-8.

"Hunter had the best week out there; had an opposite field homer against IMG," Lucas said. "We have a lineup that allows one guy to have a bad day, but we can still hit the ball. Offense doing really good."

Bennett, a 16-0 loss for St. Johns, was dominant with 10 runs in the third inning putting the Spartans on their heels. The Bennett finished with four homers in the game plus a double with 14 RBIs.

The Spartans' lone two hits went to Mason Jones and Silas Magdalein with Lucas using four pitchers.

IMG Academy had an 8-2 lead into the fifth with St. Johns adding four in the seventh off three singles, two walks and a two run double from Gavin Coffey.
Winter Park got the brunt of St. Johns' dismay, 8-0, in the lone win of the trip with a six run fifth inning with five walks and a three run double from Madden Williams.

In the final game of the road trip, St. Johns got Hartselle High, an Alabama state power and a 6A champion last year and fought to a 9-7 loss as the Spartans built a 4-0 lead into the fifth with Cole blasting a first at bat homer in the first inning and pitcher Bissel leaving three on base with three strikeouts in Hartselle's first inning at bats.

Both teams exchanged double plays on defense in the next two innings with Rodgers singling in Evan Sproull but Hartselle double playing out of the inning.
An RBI double from Sproull got the score to 4-0 in the fourth with Bissell again rifling down three strikeouts on defense.

St. Johns got to 5-0 on an RBI single from Jonas Wells with Harris on base.
Bissell finished with nine strikeouts before leaving after four innings and Lucas employing four pitches to try and stave off the Hartselle bats.

Hartselle took the lead off a double and sacrifice fly in the seventh for the win.

"We don't have the depth as a 1A school like these guys," Lucas said. "We had them beat, but it went 10 innings and they got the win."

St. Johns (9-3) has a road game at Sandalwood (10-3) on March 18 with a home match March 19 against 7A-West Broward (10-3). Fleming Island, 8-5, who had won three of four games prior to the Spring Break with an 8-0 loss to Clay on Friday, will be traveling to the panhandle as well with coach Mike Martino to put his young team up against Alabama's Macon-East Montgomery Academy (11-4), North Florida Christian, McMinn Central (5-2, TN) and McMinn County (4-1, TN).

Clay won their Friday Fleming Island game convincingly after a 4-3 loss to Nease two days prior. Clay pitcher Rylan McMahan hammered the batting lineup with seven of Clay's eight strikeouts for the game (Braden Phenneger with one). Clay upped a 3-0 lead with five runs in the sixth: a McMahan double and singles from Wyatt Rapoza, Clayton Hickey, Ethan Mathis, Tyler Gunsaulus and Peyton McRae.
Clay (7-7) has a visit from Tampa Jesuit (10-3, ranked third in 3A) on Friday, March 20 with a two-game series against St. Johns Country Day School on March 26-27.

Keystone Heights (3-10) got a 16-6 win over Eagle's View on Friday, March 13 and had a road game at Bradford on Monday, March 16. They will have a home slate of North Marion, Middleburg and Palatka on March 24-26-27.

Middleburg, 7-4, stopped a two-game skid with a 7-3 win over Keystone Heights on March 6 and had road games at Duval Charter, ED White and Bradford this week (March 17-19-20).

Oakleaf opened March with a tough 5-4 loss to St. Johns then a 10-1 win over Ridgeview on March 3. On Friday, Oakleaf, now 4-9, lost 3-0 to Fernandina Beach and had ED White, West Nassau and Baldwin this week March 16-19-20 with Trinity Catholic (10-3) on Saturday (10 a.m.) at the Fernandina Beach Diamond Classic Tournament.

Ridgeview, 7-5 after a 7-1 opening slate, lost four in a row to open March: Oakleaf, Fleming Island (twice) and Baker County before pounding Ribault 17-2 to back into the W column. The Panthers had Wolfson, Atlantic Coast and Christ's Church Academy this week March 16-17-18.