Date: Wed 04/27/2016
Title: HS Baseball – Forest (Ocala) at Wharton (Tampa), 6:45 p.m. Pregame (first pitch at 7 p.m.)
Event Details: Join Mike Ridaught (Play-by-play) and Marty Pallman (Color) for the first round of the FHSAA Class 8A state baseball playoffs. Star Banner (Ocala) preview listed below.
Click Here to Listen: http://www.floridacast.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=4B16F6AFCA
CHROME BROWSER NOTE: Recent versions of the Chrome Browser have discontinued support for several plugins including the Silverlight media player used on this site. The best option to access this ‘live’ broadcast is to switch to a different browser, i.e. Internet Explorer or Firefox.
The other option for windows users is to click the “WMP Player” once you access the broadcast on Chrome. This will play the broadcast in your standalone windows media player if that is available on your computer.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Star Banner (Ocala) preview:
Region 8A-1 Quarterfinal – Forest (Ocala) (19-8) at Wharton (Tampa) (14-10)
Winner gets: Lake Minneola or Strawberry Crest in Tuesday’s regional semifinals. Forest would travel to either team.
Scouting report: Forest took a 5-3 lead into the fifth inning against Lake Minneola in Friday’s district championship game before the Hawks went ahead for good to win the 8A-3 title. FHS was looking for its second district title in a row after a run to the state semifinals in 2015. Forest senior pitcher Kirby McMullen has 56 strikeouts in 44 innings pitched. The University of Florida signee is 6-2 with a 1.59 ERA. McMullen went the distance in a 4-3 win over Ocoee in the district semifinals. He (.416, 4 HR, 11 RBIs) also leads FHS in hitting. Andrew Eyster (.395, 5 HR, 10 2B, 4 3B, 37 RBIs), Phillip Felicien (.372, 1 HR, 28 RBIs), David Stromwall (.294, 10 RBIs) and Grant Grodi (.282, 16 RBIs) round out the FHS lineup.
Wharton pitcher Tyler Garam (4-3, 51 Ks, 52.2 IP) went six innings and gave up four hits, three walks and had four strikeouts in its win over Strawberry Crest in the 8A-4 championship game. Senior pitcher Jonathan Baughman (5-2, 1.60 ERA), an Eckerd commit, has thrown 48 innings with 84 strikeouts. Baughman went the entire way in the Wharton’s 4-1 win over Freedom in the district semis. Drew Ehrhard (.421, 7 2B, 11 RBIs), Duncan Pastore (.338, 11 RBIs) and Clayton Coringrato (.281, 3 HR, 11 RBIs) lead the Wharton offense.
Forest is ranked 11th in the latest regional baseball rankings
