North Broward Prep baseball hits 11 home runs to win region title. Plus state lacrosse honors
There are games that turn into slugfests, and then there’s what happened on Tuesday afternoon at Westminster Christian in Miami.
North Broward Prep -- the reigning Class 4A state champions that dropped down to 3A this season where the Warriors were state runners-up last season -- engaged in a record-setting power display that saw 26 runs scored on 15 combined home runs.
While Westminster’s ballpark with its short dimensions along the right and left field lines is known for being hitter-friendly, what North Broward Prep did during a 14-12 victory over Westminster Christian in the Region 4-3A final that secured the Eagles a return trip to the state final four next week in Fort Myers was ridiculous.
“We used to play on a really small field, and I’ve seen some five- or six-home run games, but nothing like this,” North Broward Prep coach Brian Campbell said. “This was unbelievable. It just seemed like any time anyone touched the baseball it was leaving the park.”
North Broward Prep entered the game having hit 10 home runs the entire season.
On Tuesday, the Eagles hit 11, including eight solo homers.
They hit six of those in just one inning — the top of the fifth — when they placed seven runs to take an 11-3 lead.
Eagles senior shortstop Jonathan Xuereb hit three home runs and barely missed a fourth.
Xuereb had hit only three the entire season coming into the game.
“It was really unreal. When we got here we saw that short right fence and we thought just hit the ball to right field,” said Xuereb, who hit two of his three homers to right field. “But then we started hitting them to right, to left, to center. It was truly amazing.”
North Broward Prep (21-9) will play next Tuesday in the state semifinals at either 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. at Hammond Stadium, and make its fourth appearance at state after winning the school’s first state title a year ago.
In a game this wild, even that eight-run advantage in the fifth would not have been enough had Nick Koorse and Gian De Castro not added a solo and a two-run home run, respectively, in the sixth and seventh innings.
That’s because the home team didn’t go quietly. Westminster hit four home runs of its own and responded to North Broward Prep’s seven-run fifth with six runs in the bottom half of that inning capped by Sal Stewart’s two-run homer that cut the Eagles’ lead to 11-9.
“We had some opportunities in the game to put pressure and we didn’t execute and they did,” Westminster Christian coach Emil Castellanos said. “I haven’t seen this many home runs on this field in a long time, but that’s the game of baseball. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat.”
Layered within the power display, one of the keys to North Broward Prep hanging on was reliever Jensen Secular’s shutdown sixth inning in relief.
Rene Ramirez’s three-run blast with two outs in the bottom of the seventh off Secular pulled the Warriors within two. But Secular then induced Chris Carroll, who also homered earlier in the game, to ground out to short to end the game.
Lacrosse honors
St. Thomas Aquinas senior Trace McDonald is a finalist for Florida Dairy Farmers Mr. Lacrosse honors.
Signed with Flagler College, he scored 37 goals and added 39 assists for the Class 2A state champion Raiders.
Terry Crowley of St. Thomas Aquinas is in the running for Coach of the Year, after leading his squad to a 17-3 record and the Class 2A state title.
Peri Riegner of St. Thomas Aquinas is a finalist for the Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Lacrosse.
Riegner, a senior, scored 54 goals and had 19 assists for Class 2A Final Four team. She is signed with the University of Louisville.
St. Thomas Aquinas coach Kevin Gilligan is in the running for the Girls’ Lacrosse Coach of the Year award.
He led the Raiders to a 14-4 record and a spot in the Class 2A Final Four.
College signings
Mater Academy Charter student athletes signed college scholarships.
They are: Hermione Hicks (basketball with NAIA Florida National University in Hialeah); Angelica Ortiz (volleyball with NAIA Atlantis University in Miami); and Genesis Santiago (basketball with John Wood Community College in Quincy, Illinois).
Awards, honors, college signings
If you have local, state, national and/or team awards for your varsity student athletes, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
College signings, too.
New athletic directors, coaches
For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have new sports administration and/or coaching hires to announce, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
Submit sports results
For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have varsity results (playoffs, spring football), top performers and stats for this column, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
They will run in the newspaper and online. Photos accepted, too. No deadline. Send after the game, the next day or weekly. You will be alerted when it will appear in the newspaper and online.
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Roundup compiled by Jim Varsallone
jvarsallone@miamiherald.com
