Gorordo’s Gem Leads South Dade Past Palmetto

The South Dade Bucs beat the Palmetto Panthers 7-3 in a 8A-16 matchup to cap off a perfect season at home with a 12-0 record. The two teams exchanged runs during the first three innings, but from the fourth inning on it was all Bucs from there.

For Manager Fred Burnside success at home goes beyond his players.

“This community has gotten behind us,” said Burnside. “We have a great following here at the ballpark and I think the atmosphere is a real plus for us.”

The Bucs (17-4) capped off a perfect season at home against the Panthers (9-11) thanks to a great complete-game performance by junior Jose Gorordo, who finished with 11 strikeouts while allowing five hits and three runs. All of the damage came early, as Keaton Zargham scored in the first and Kieran Foreman followed in the third on an RBI single from Michael Roman.

After the third it was all Gorordo.

“Just throwing strikes and getting my off-speed pitches to fall,” said Gorordo on his mindset throughout the game.

A successful team is one where coaches trust each other’s decisionmaking, and that was in full effect during this game. Manager Burnside gave credit his coaching staff for the decision on letting Gorordo have the game to himself.

“That was Phil Smiths’ decision, my pitching coach,” said Brurnside. “I was getting a little antsy there to be honest with you when he threw a couple wild pitches. The difference is losing focus; he focused and threw three or four good pitches, then lost it at times.”

The Bucs capitalized on a few fielding mishaps during the second to score six of their seven runs. Arturo Paula led the offense with two RBIs while Erik and Alex Manoah had an RBI each during the second inning. Sergio Lopez added another on a line-drive single during the fourth.

For the Panthers and interim-manager Jeff Steiner, this was a game that should have been closer. Steiner is quick to point out their failures, but ultimately knows it’s a game they can learn from going into districts.

“Unfortunately we didn’t give the run support we needed for our pitchers,” said Steiner. “However if you watched the second inning I think they had six runs and I don’t think all of them were earned. We made three errors and in the third inning we came back and we had our heads down.”

Thursday’s game had some extra importance for seniors Erik Manoah, Austin Allende, Jori Rodriguez and Luis Borges. As it was the Bucs’ last home game of the regular season it was their last regular season home game of their high school careers.

“Four years have flown by really quickly,” said Borges. “I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it with any other guys than the guys here with me. Hopefully we can keep going and have that one goal that we’ve always been looking for.”

Rodriguez added his thoughts about his time as a Buc.

“My dad has always been telling me since I came in as a freshman ‘four years are going to go by quick’ and this year with my boys it has gone through quick,” said Rodriguez. “But at least we got the ‘W’ today; that’s the biggest thing.”

Both teams are now en route to the district playoffs, with the Panthers sitting in fifth place. The Bucs are locked for districts too, but still have to wait and see their fate given the close race at the top of the standings with the Killian Cougars and the Southridge Spartans. The Bucs visit the Spartans in their season finale to determine their positioning going into the playoffs.

The Panthers are done with their regular season and have already made up their minds of the role they will be taking going into the playoffs.

“We’re going to be the spoilers,” said Steiner. “We are going to go in there and we are going to work hard this week. We have two non-district games so we can work out some of the kinks and right after that we’ll go right into district play. Then its all new, its all starting over, it doesn’t matter, everyone is zero-zero.”

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