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- Game of the Week preparations: Plant vs. TBT
- Jesuit's Harrell will not play in season opener
- Plant volleyball looking to defend Gator Town title
- Football Friday Night Live
- Veteran coach fills Mosca's position at Jefferson
- Chickillo picks his finalists
- A bad break for Plant
- New feature: prep video blog
- Senior showcase set for Sept. 18 at UT
- And the hits just keep on coming for Plant
- Robinson duo to visit Minnesota
- Li picks Yale
- No rest for weary Plant Panthers
- Plant plummets in national rankings
- Armwood's King suffers knee injury
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A former college basketball coach is replacing Tom Mosca at Jefferson.
Jim Baxter, who has coaching stints at Bethune-Cookman, Monmouth, FAMU and Tallahassee Comunity College on his resume, will take over the girls basketball position that became available when Mosca took an assistant coaching job at the Air Force Academy.
“He’s got an extensive coaching resume,” Jefferson athletic director Bob Morgan said. “He’s like Tom Mosca, he’s got a lot of years in basketball.”
Baxter inherits a team that advanced to the state Final Four last season and loses just one starter, Jade Givens.
“He went to a few of our games last year,” Morgan said of Baxter, whose wife Michelle Woods-Baxter is an assitant coach at USF. “He’s familiar with our players.”
Jesuit administration will withhold senior linebacker Anthony Harrell from playing in the season opener Friday against Lakeland Kathleen, the school announced Thursday.
In a statement released by the school, Jesuit administration explained “the decision to withhold is based on a rule involving transfer students for which the Athletic Department awaits clarification from the Florida High School Athletic Association.”
When contacted Wednesday by the Tribune, FHSAA spokesperson Seth Polansky said there was no open investigation involving Jesuit’s football program.
Harrell transferred to Jesuit from Freedom during the summer. His father, James Harrell, accepted Hthe head coaching position at Jesuit this spring after one season as Freedom’s head football coach. When reached via text, James Harrell declined comment.
Please join us Friday night for scoring updates, analysis and good-hearted fun as Week One of the prep football season unfolds. We were very proud to have been voted No. 4 on the list of “Top Friday Night Things To Do In Tampa Bay’’ (we’d like to see the top three), so join us for a prep football tradition like no other.
Plant junior defensive back David Lerom suffered a broken arm during Wednesday night’s practice and will undergo surgery next week to repair the damage.
Lerom, who splits time at the free safety with junior James Few, started last week against Manatee and was slated to start against Tampa Bay Tech Friday night. He’s been getting the bulk of the reps at practice this week while Few nurses a hamstring injury. Plant coach Robert Weiner said Few could be ready to go Friday, but if not, senior Scott Greacen would fill in.
The Panthers travel to Tampa Bay Tech Friday night to open the regular season.
Last season, Plant defeated eventual Class 5A state champ Martin County in a tough four-set match in the semifinals and host Buchholz in the tournament final to capture the 2009 Gator Town Classic.
This weekend, the Panthers are heading back to Gainesville to defend their title, but they won’t be the only local team hoping for a chance to win the 16-team tournament. Plant will be joined by Clearwater, Durant, Steinbrenner and Tampa Prep.
Pool play begins Friday to determine which teams advance to either the gold, silver, bronze or copper division brackets on Saturday. Matches will be played at Buchholz and Santa Fe High.
Here are the pools (matches are best 2 of 3). First place teams advance to the gold bracket, second place to silver, etc.:
Pool A: Orlando Bishop Moore, Jacksonville Providence, Ocala Vanguard, Durant.
Pool B: Plant, Gainesville Buchholz, Steinbrenner, Oak Hall.
Pool C: Jacksonville Bolles, Tampa Prep, Santa Fe, Tallahassee Lincoln.
Pool D: Gainesville, Jensen Beach (2009 4A state champs), Clearwater, St. Johns.
The tournament championship will be played Saturday at 2:45 p.m.
The 2010 prep football season officially begins Friday and there’s a great matchup in Week 1: Plant at Tampa Bay Tech.
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This is a much-anticipated rematch of last year’s season opener at Plant, where TBT rallied from a 24-0 third-quarter deficit to beat the Panthers 32-30 in one of the most exciting prep games ever in Hillsborough County.
Plant is coming off a humbling 48-10 loss to Manatee is last week’s nationally-televised preseason game in Bradenton. The Titans, meanwhile, knocked off Plant City 14-7 in their Kickoff Classic.
TBT is out to prove last year’s win over eventual Class 5A state champion Plant was no fluke. The Panthers probably want a little revenge from last season’s loss to the Titans but seem more concerned about correcting mistakes from last week’s game.
To get a glimpse at how these two standout squads are preparing for Friday’s showdown on Orient Road, check out the photos from practice sessions this week by following this link: http://www2.tbo.com/photoalbum/2010/sep/01/game-of-the-week-preparations-plant-vs-tbt/
And as always, come to TBO.com for the best coverage of prep sports in Hillsborough County. Each Friday night, we’ll have live updates and scores from Friday’s area football games, as well as “Football Friday Night Live” an interactive forum hosted by preps guru and all-around sports genius Joey Johnston. And it’s all free!
And then there were six.
From the nearly 50 Division I scholarship offers, Alonso’s Anthony Chickillo has picked his final six. Chickillo told the Tampa Tribune, he will choose among Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Tennessee and USF when he makes his pick.
The senior defensive end will announce his college decision during a ceremony at his school on Sept. 9th at 2 p.m. Chickillo had originally planned to announce his decision on ESPN, but the space confines of the television studio limited the amount of people he could invite. So instead, he’ll be surrounded by friends and family at Alonso.
Starting with Week 1 of the regular prep football season, TBO.com is, sort of speak, kicking off a weekly prep video blog.
Hosted by Tampa Tribune prep sports reporters Joey Johnston, Katherine Smith, Nick Williams and Adam Adkins, we’ll be looking at hot topics from around Hillsborough County, as well as looking ahead to the week’s most appealing games.
This week’s blog can be seen by following this link: http://www2.tbo.com/video/2010/aug/31/prep-video-blog—-whos-hyped-98778/video-sports/
The subject for our opening blog: Which teams are getting the most hype, and which ones might be a bit over-hyped. We also discuss the showdown between Tampa Bay Tech and Plant, Hillsborough and Jefferson, Armwood and Newsome and Robinson vs. Blake.
Robinson senior football players Ruben Gonzalez and Tevin Newman have scheduled their first official visits.
The pair will head to Minnesota the weekend of Sept. 18 when the Golden Gophers host USC, Knights assistant Shawn Taylor said.
Both Gonzalez, a receiver/defensive back, and Newman, a linebacker, have received a scholarship offer from the Big Ten program.
The University of Tampa will serve as the site of this year’s Tampa Bay Sports Commission’s Fall Classic, a showcase for uncommitted senior baseball players from Hillsborough County. It will be held Sept. 18.
The event, in its third year, was designed to give area baseball players much-needed exposure before the November early signing period. Last year’s event, held at USF, featured roughly 60 players. This year the number is expected to be capped at 50 (25 per team).
It didn’t take long for Plant’s Amber Li to choose Yale as her next tennis destination. All they had to do was offer.
Li verbally committed to the Ivy League school during a home visit with the tennis team’s coach Monday night.
“I think the name first drew me in, but when I visited the campus, I knew I wanted to be there and I didn’t want to leave,” Li said. “It felt comfortable. And the coach is a lot like me. She is really nice and dedicated and wants the team to get better.”
Li, the Tampa Tribune Girls Tennis Player of the Year, is coming off a great summer where she performed well in several tournaments. In the past three years at Plant, she’s helped lead the Panthers to a state championship and two runner-up finishes.
Plant’s reign as Rivals.com’s No. 1 team in the nation has ended. And it didn’t last long.
Almost as quickly as the Panthers let last Friday’s game against Bradenton Manatee slip away, their No. 1 ranking is gone. Rivals dropped Plant to No. 78 and 12th in the country.
Manatee, the team that beat Plant 48-10 and exposed them on national television, moves from No. 48 to No. 29. Armwood rose from No. 25 to No. 20 and Jefferson moved up from No. 60 to No. 43.
To see the complete list, click here.
UPDATE: USA Today dropped Plant in its lastest Super 25 rankings. Before Friday’s 48-10 loss to Bradenton Manatee, USA Today has the Panthers ranked sixth in the nation.
After the loss, which included a running clock in the fourth quarter, Plant is out of the top 25 completely. Manatee moved up to sixth place from eighth.
To see the complete list, click here.
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Plant’s free fall in the national rankings has begun.
Following the Panthers 48-10 loss to Bradenton Manatee last Friday night, Plant, previously ranked No. 2 in the nation, fell 38 spots to No. 40. Manatee rose from No. 19 to No. 3.
Click here to see ESPN’s complete list.
Plant opens the regular season on Friday at Tampa Bay Tech, the team that handed them their only regular-season loss last season. The Panthers have another nationally televised game on ESPN scheduled for Sept. 16th against Texas’ Abilene, ESPN’s No. 1 ranked team.
In the MaxPreps national rankings, Plant dropped out of the top 25. They were ranked No. 11 before Friday night’s loss. Armwood moved up three spots to No. 18 after its 42-0 victory against Middleton.
Plant took quite a beating from Bradenton Manatee and it showed up in more ways than just the scoreboard.
Several starters sustained injuries, but it won’t prevent them from going all out at Plant’s practice later this afternoon.
Despite being hobbled for most of last Friday’s game with an ankle injury, Phillip Ely won’t be limited when the Panthers begin preparation for Tampa Bay Tech today. Neither will James Wilder, who suffered from severe cramping in the second half and left the field when the game was over with a noticeable limp.
Plant coach Robert Weiner said his starters will be “full tilt” when they take the practice field later today.
Gaither junior baseball player Alex Milne has verbally committed to UCF, Cowboys coach Frank Permuy said.
Milne, a left-handed pitcher, is 13-2 over his first two varsity seasons, including 8-0 in 2010, with a combined 3.27 ERA over that stretch. Permuy said Milne also is coming off a great summer, when he went 5-0 with Gaither’s American Legion A squad.
“We noticed right from the beginning that we had something special,” Permuy said of Milne. “There are certain things he still has to work on ... and he wants to work on these things. That’s one of the best things about him. He has a great work ethic.”
Milne posted a 3.50 ERA over 30 innings pitched as a freshman while going 5-2. Last season he had a 3.13 ERA, the lowest among all Gaither’s starters, while throwing a team-high 47 innings.
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