South Dade Comes Away With Key District Victory Over Palmetto

Although there still is a lot of baseball to be played until district tournament seeding is set, the South Dade Buccaneers took care of business on Thursday afternoon.

Starting pitcher David Lebron led the way with a dominating performance to help his team come away with an important 6-3 win over the Palmetto Panthers in 8A District 16.

“This was a big win for us in terms of giving us a high seed in the district tournament,” South Dade coach Fred Burnside said. “But everyone in the district is knocking heads today, so who knows what may end up happening.”

Lebron pitched five and one-third innings while striking out five batters. He forced the Panthers into many routine groundouts and limited Palmetto to few opportunities.

“Lebron put on a show, and I thought he really dominated today,” Burnside said.

The Buccaneers got a big hit in the third inning to gain the lead. Joey Rivera knocked a shot to deep right-center field and raced around the bases for a triple. David Lugo drove him in with a groundball to the second baseman on a called hit-and-run.

Anthony Dowling added to the South Dade lead in the top half of the fourth with a blast over the right-center field fence for a solo home run.

Other than two big hits, Palmetto starting pitcher Nick Greuner also was having a great outing. Greuner held the Buccaneers to two hits in the first five innings and finished the day with seven strikeouts.

“I knew we were going to need Greuner today in this game,” Palmetto head coach Danny Smith said. “He pitched a great game and he kept the door closed for as long as he could against a good, well coached team.”

In the sixth inning, South Dade put a few hits together and broke open the game to take a 6-0 lead. Ryan Bogaards, David Lebron and Stefan Leal drove in runs with singles throughout the inning.

“Today was a total team effort, and we got a little help from everyone,” Burnside said. “We executed a couple of hit-and-runs today to help us get some singles through, and it worked out.”

The Panthers kept fighting though. Palmetto showed a lot of character and scored two runs of in the sixth after back-to-back singles from Riley Delgado and William Schilling. Things became a little closer in the seventh when Chris Rolon singled and drove in Michael Wall to make the game 6-3. Riley Delgado reached base after a walk, and Schilling represented the tying run for the Panthers at the plate. However, South Dade pitcher Adam Roush was able to get Schilling to fly out to right field to end the game.

“We are in a slump right now at the plate,” Smith said. “The kids are working, and I know we will get out of it.”

South Dade will play another big district opponent in Killian next week to decide a tie from earlier in the season. Palmetto has some time off before it takes on Goleman on April 19.

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