Melbourne Central Catholic needed fewer than five innings on Tuesday for a 10-0 win over Sarasota Booker in a Class 5A regional final.
MCC defeated Sarasota Booker on Tuesday, 10-0, to advance to the 5A state tournament.
That earned the Hustlers a trip to the state tournament for the first time since five current Hustlers seniors were freshmen on the 2013 3A state championship team.
Two other Brevard County high school baseball teams were not as fortunate. Melbourne lost in a 7A regional final at Tampa Gaither, 5-3. Rockledge fell at home to Archbishop McCarthy, 8-1.
For the Hustlers, Christian Smallwood went 3-for-3 and drove in three runs, helping the team to its 30th win in 31 games, a program record for a single season.
“You just can’t take anybody for granted,” Smallwood said. “We’ve got momentum. We’ve just got to build off that from this game and, really, the last three.”
There are eight Hustlers seniors in all, and coach Tom Dooley said the 2016 team has been “one of my favorite groups to ever be around.”
Three Brevard teams are state track runners-up
Mark Potter struck out eight Booker batters and allowed just three hits. At the plate, he went 2-for-3 and drove in two runs. He and Will Erdman, who also went 2-for-3, were two of those 2013 state-winning ninth-graders. S.P. Perry also went 2-for-3 and drove in a run against the 21-9 Tornadoes.
“We’ve played pretty consistently all year long,” Dooley said. “I just know with the teams we’re going to face, we’re going to have to play our best to even be with them.”
MCC will face either Jacksonville Bolles or Rutherford on May 18 at Jet Blue Park in Ft. Myers. The 5A semifinals will be played back-to-back beginning at 4 p.m., and the title game will be the following day at 7:35.
At Rockledge (28-2) on Tuesday, Archbishop McCarthy scored three in the fifth and two in the sixth to put some distance between itself and the Raiders at 7-1. Rockledge loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning but couldn’t score.
Melbourne (22-10) already trailed by its final margin of 5-3 in the sixth against Gaither (18-9) when it loaded the bases in the sixth but stranded the runners.
Contact McCallum at 321-242-3698 or bmccallum@floridatoday.com. Follow @Brian_McCallum on Twitter and facebook.com/FLtoday.brianmccallum.
High school sports | floridatoday.com/sports/high-school-sports/