Plant holds off Durant in Top 5 showdown opener

Plant catcher James Leach and battery-mate Robert Satin congratulate each other after the Panthers’ season-opening win against Durant (photo by Chuck Frye).

By Chuck Frye
Staff writer

TAMPA — When a pair of heavyweight opponents match up, even in the first game of the season, one team usually has to seize upon an opportunity to gain a little breathing room.

Consider Tuesday’s season-opener pitting host Plant, 813Preps’ preseason top-ranked squad coming off a trip to the 2022 Class 7A final four, against a successful No. 5 Durant squad that was nudged out of the 7A regional semifinals. Both returned plenty of offensive firepower from those halcyon days, as well as the potential to match that production on the pitching mound.

With comparable talent, something had to give and, unfortunately for the visiting Cougars, it did. An errant throw in the bottom of the first inning scored an unearned run and set the stage for a second to cross, giving 813preps 6A-7A Pitcher of the Year Robert Satin just enough cushion to work with. Despite an impressive Durant bounce-back on the hill and in the batter’s box, Plant held on for the 4-2 victory.

Durant rightfielder Blaine Rowland making a sliding grab of Plant lead-off hitter Jack Meade’s foul-line fly ball in the sixth inning (photo by Chuck Frye).

“When you play these high school games, hopefully you get that throwing error or something,” Panthers head coach Dennis Braun explained. “You play on this field, with all of this foul ground … it’s a double hurt. You can’t throw the ball away on this field or it’s going to be two bases all the time.”

After leadoff hitter Jack Meade singled up the middle followed by a similar stroke by Satin one out later, an airmailed pickoff sailed to the outfield to score Meade and send courtesy runner Matthew Midyett to third base where he later scored on a Bryce Pelleriti ground out.

Starter Gavin Florio settled things down and got Durant out of the inning, but the Panthers strung together four quality, third-inning at-bats that eventually sent the senior to the showers.

Satin got the ball rolling with a one-out base hit — his second of three that he authored while seeing just four total pitches all night.

“The visualization work that we do before games just gets me right every time,” Satin said of his early offensive success. “At the plate, it’s just being aggressive and seeing the ball well.”

Pelleriti followed Satin by being hit by a pitch, then DH Danny Cerelli and Rocco Demarinis each delivered RBI singles to bump the Plant advantage to 4-0.

Plant pitcher and reigning 813preps.com Class 6A-7A Pitcher of the Year Robert Satin deals in the season opener against Durant. Satin went the distance, allowing four hits and striking out eight in a 4-2 victory (photo by Chuck Frye).

After the outburst, Cougars head coach Butch Valdes turned to Preston Rogers to stem the tide and the senior delivered, yielding harmless fourth-inning singles to sophomore Cash Strayer and Satin while finishing his five-strikeout, 3 2/3-inning stint by retiring the last seven Panther batters he faced.

“I thought (Rogers) was really good,” Braun said. “His breaking ball was outstanding.”

Rogers’ success allowed the Durant offense to find itself. No. 9 hitter Devin Suero lashed a line drive single just over soaring second baseman Tanner Swank in the fifth to plate DH Jeremy Ortiz (second of two walks). With two outs in the sixth, clean-up man Noah Morales took Satin’s second pitch on a towering ride over the leftfield wall to make it 4-2, with the visitors getting the tying run to the plate shortly thereafter.

But there was no panic in Satin as the senior retired the Cougars’ 6-to-9 batters — players that had contributed four of Durant’s six baserunners on the night, to end the rally.

Of Durant’s bottom-of-the-order prowess, Satin said, “They were just hitting my stuff. I wasn’t letting up or anything, it’s just that they were hitting me.”

Durant DH Jeremy Ortiz (18 in blue) crossing the plate between Plant pitcher Robert Satin (left) and catcher James Leach for the Cougars’ first run in the fifth inning (photo by Chuck Frye).

On the night as a whole – a complete-game, four-hit victory with eight Ks, Satin said directly: “I just trusted my stuff from last season, went out and did my thing. Throwing every day, doing my three-pound weights that Coach (Braun) tells us to do, getting my arm healthy to throw a complete game.”

“As a coach after 38 years, you’re not sure what you’re going to get every day,” Braun said. “Like I told (Valdes pre-game), we won a lot of one-run games last year (during a 23-7 season) and we lost a lot of one-run games when we started 1-9 the year before. You’ve got to come out here and prepare and the guys have done a nice job with that.”

With preseason No. 2 starter Michael Hawks on the shelf due to a “little injury” according to Braun, juniors Garrett Hill and Mitchel Doane will probably see mound duty in Plant’s next matchup Thursday night at Steinbrenner. Durant will also return to action on Thursday, traveling to take on Brandon.

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(#1) Plant 4, (#5) Durant 2

D 000|011|0 – |2|4|0
P 202|000|x – |4|8|0
W – Satin (1-0); L – Florio (0-1)
HR – Morales (D). Records – D (0-1); P (1-0).