Our Sonic Player-of-the-game for Friday, March 31, is Chase DeMichele of the Gainesville baseball team.
It didn’t take DeMichele long to get going against rival Buchholz in a front of a packed house at Gainesville.
Last year, GHS was shutout at home by the Bobcats, 11-0.
But this year the junior pitcher settled down after hitting the second batter of the game and dominated by retiring the final eight batters he faced before leaving in the 4th inning up 10-0. The Purple Hurricanes ended up routing the ‘Cats, 15-5 (5 innings).
But it was DeMichele’s bat that set the tone.
In the bottom of the first inning with two on, DeMichele crushed a pitch over the Purple Monster in right center field for a towering 3-run HR and a commanding 3-0 lead early.
DeMichele only had one more at bat in the game, but he added an RBI on a sacrifice fly to center field in the 2nd inning to finish with four RBIs. He pitched three innings and allowed no runs on no hits with three strikeouts.
Gainesville (13-4), winners of four in a row and eight of their last nine, will travel to Vanguard (Ocala) on Thursday, April 6, for a Class 7A-District 3 game. We’ll have ‘live’ and ‘archived’ audio coverage of the game online at ThePrepZone.com.
Every game The Prep Zone will recognize a Sonic Player-of-the-Game. The recipient receives a $10 gift card & certificate courtesy of Sonic of Gainesville & Ocala.
