Blue Bracket Championship
If you wanted to watch a lot of good high school softball over the weekend at the Kissimmee Klassic, you got your money’s worth as the championship game in the Blue Bracket went down to the wire Saturday night.
Newsome High went 4-0 in the prestigious high school softball tournament and finished the Easter weekend 16-0, but it didn’t come easily as the Wolves had to go eight innings in a thrilling win over East Ridge 2-1 in the nightcap after pulling out a 1-0 victory over Bartow earlier in the day.
On Friday, Newsome beat Lake Region 12-2 after starting off the Klassic on Thursday with a 4-1 win over Lake Nona.
In the dramatic title game, no runs were scored after seven innings so the game went to a tie-breaker in the eighth.
Eastridge scored in the top of the 8th inning but Newsome escaped with the win in the bottom half of its inning with two fielder’s choice RBIs that never left the infield.
Karley Shelton led off the inning with a single to move Katy Bradbourne, who started the inning on second, to third. Jadeyn Ruszkowski gounded to third but the throw home was too late to get Bradbourne and the game was tied 1-1.
Shelton came around to score the winning run on a Lydia Castro bunt to third that was also too late at the plate and gave the winning Wolves the decisive run to win the 2021 Blue Bracket championship.
Maria Brooks started the game for Newsome and went 4.1 innings striking out two and giving up five hits. Kelsey Winters picked up the victory by going 3.2 innings and striking out three with four hits allowed.
For East Ridge High, Madie Wicker took the loss despite doing well in the circle and at the plate. She only gave up three hits in 5.2 innings while striking out three and also collected two hits including a double.
Newsome only got five hits (to East Ridge’s nine)—Shelton was the only player with more than one hit as she went 2-for-4—but it was enough to keep the Wolves undefeated both at the Kissimmee Klassic and for the 2021 season.
Gold Bracket Championship
In the Gold Bracket, University High of Orange, Florida won its semi-final game 2-1 over Viera as Jonni Sanchez and Grace Taylor teamed up for eight strikeouts for the close win.
In the title game, it was more of a breather for the Titans who jumped out with two runs in the top of the first and never looked back in the 7-0 win over Canterbury.
Taylor got the win in the championship as she struck out nine and gave up just two hits in her six innings before handing the ball off to Madison Siegel who struck out two to close it out in the final inning for the Titans.
Annalyn Duncan was the offensive start as she went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs and two runs scored hitting cleanup in the order. Madde Jorczak also had an RBI triple to spark the offense.
Kissimmee Kowboy head coach and Tournament director Miranda Watford told Extra Inning Softball she was happy with how the event went this year.
“I think things went very well considering the times we are in. We all just want to get back to a sense of normalcy. This wasn’t the easiest one to plan with so many unknowns thanks to COVID. And for all of us involved in the planning, once the first games started, we all breathed a sigh of relief, as the month before we didn’t know what to expect.”
“We started with 30 confirmed teams and for a few weeks due to travel restrictions we had teams backing out at a rate of one to two teams a week. We redid the brackets six times! We held our breath after all the school districts spring breaks cycled through and, fortunately, we only had one team back out the week of, putting us at a total of 24 teams to kick off the tournament Thursday.”
Coach Watford also said the caliber of teams, players and action on the field was what she had hoped it would be.
We were not disappointed with the caliber of play. Newsome, East Ridge, Doral, Bartow, University, Viera to name a few put on a show and we definitely had some memorable games. The close games, down to the wire is what this tournament is all about. We want to help teams prepare for playoffs. We had teams show up without key role players due to quarantines and it was awesome watching these teams step up to the challenge. In a year where we as coaches never know day to day what is going to happen because of players being placed in quarantine or games being cancelled due to team quarantines, we still had competitive teams. That’s all we can ask for.
*****
Honors
Blue Bracket
- MVP: Katelyn Oxley (Bartow)
- Outstanding Offensive Player: Kassandra Machado (Doral)
- Outstanding Defensive Player: Maddie Navaro (Rockledge)
Gold Bracket
- MVP- Grace Taylor (University)
- Outstanding Offensive Player: Kaylee Ellsworth (Merritt Island)
- Outstanding Defensive Player: Kaili Cannon (Canterbury)
2021 Kissimmee Klassic Scoreboard
Saturday, April 3
Blue Bracket Championship
- Newsome 2, East Ridge 1
Gold Bracket Championship
- University (Orange City) 7, Canterbury 0
Other Scores
- University (Orange City) 2, Viera 1
- Winter Springs 9, Coral Reef 5
- Lake Nona 20, Deltona 10
- East Ridge 1, Lake Brantley 0
- Viera 5, St. Cloud 0
- Osceola 9, Merritt Island 1
- Bartow 2, Lake Brantley 1
- Doral Academy 17, Rockledge 1
- River Ridge 3, Lake Region 1
- Alonso 10, Oakleaf 7
- Rockledge 3, Lake Region 2
- Newsome 1, Bartow 0
- Doral Academy 5, River Ridge 4
- West Nassau 7, Trinity Christian 5
- Robinson 9, Matanzas 1
Friday, April 2
Blue Bracket
- Lake Brantley 3, Rockledge 1
- Alonso 8, Lake Nona 7
- East Ridge 13, Doral Academy 12
- Bartow 5, River Ridge 0
- Newsome 12, Lake Region 2
- Trinity Christian 12, Oakleaf 8
- Winter Springs 14, Lake Nona 3
- West Nassau 14, Alonso 2
Gold Pool Play
- Robinson 17, Osceola 3
- St. Cloud 18, Merritt Island 3
- Canterbury 12, Matanzas, 6
- University 5, Robinson 4
- West Nassau 4, Winger Springs 1
- Trinity Christian 3, Deltona 0
- Oakleaf 12, Coral Reef 7
- Matanzas 8, St. Cloud 5
- Canterbury 6, Merritt Island 3
- Coral Reef 15, Deltona 0
Thursday, April 1, 2021
Blue Bracket
- River Ridge 8, Winter Springs 2
- Doral Academy 9, Jacksonville Trinity 2
- Newsome 4, Lake Nona 1
- East Ridge 11, Deltona 0
- Bartow 5, West Nassau 4
- Lake Brantley 6, Oakleaf 1
- Lake Region 8, Alonso 2
Gold Pool Play
- Robinson 11, Viera 10
- Matanzas 8, Merritt Island 5
- University 8, Osceola 1
- Viera 14, Osceola 0
- Canterbury 15, St. Cloud 3
