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Baseball: Sunlake Doing The Little Things Right

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By RICK HARMON

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 13, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - Sunlake baseball coach Dick Rohrberg knows exactly how Netherlands manager Rod Delmonico feels after the Dutch shocked the Dominican Republic this week.

Rohrberg's Seahawks and the Netherlands play a similar style of baseball.

"We spent 10 minutes talking about the Netherlands' win," Rohrberg said. "They did it with pitching and defense. They can't hit a lick. But they play defense and change speeds and throw strikes. For us, we preach pitching and defense and little ball - move guys over and don't pop up a lot."

That plan has earned the Seahawks a 4-3 record - 4-2 in Class 4A-District 8, two games behind Pasco and one behind Zephyrhills, which Sunlake beat last week.

"The kids are starting to buy into things," Rohrberg said. "We're bunting guys over. We're hitting behind the runner. We've had quite a few sacrifice bunts."

Rohrberg is in his first season as Sunlake's coach after 12 seasons at Chamberlain in Tampa. One of the disadvantages of a new skipper is the lack of familiarity with the county schools.

"I don't know anything about any of the teams we play, so we try to do a lot of scouting," he said. "We do charts on the hitters, so the second and third time around, we'll have a better idea."

Senior Pablo Rivera leads the Seahawks in hitting with a .667 average (12-for-18). Sunlake is hitting .316 as a team, with only 12 of its 55 hits for extra bases.

The Seahawks started the season losing three of their first four, but they have three consecutive 4A-8 wins, including a big 7-3 victory at Zephyrhills.

"I think they were overwhelmed with what we taught them in the beginning," Rohrberg said. "There were a lot of things we worked on that they hadn't before, for whatever reason. I told them we were going to work hard and get our reps in."

MIDWAY POINT: Most districts will have completed the first round of games after tonight. Here is what we know about the districts:

6A-7 - Alonso and Mitchell are the class of this one. The Ravens lead at 4-0 and beat a 3-1 Mitchell team 5-3 last week when Mustangs ace Patrick Schuster was sick. The teams will meet again March 24.

5A-7 - Land O' Lakes (4-0) has beaten everyone in the district, and a win tonight against Central probably will give the Gators the No. 1 seed in the tournament.

4A-8 - Once again, Pasco (6-0) is the class of this district, with Zephyrhills (5-1) right behind. The Pirates and Bulldogs meet tonight at Pasco for the first of two meetings. Sunlake (4-2), with a win against Zephyrhills, is in third place with Wiregrass Ranch, Springstead and Nature Coast at 4-3.

2A-9 - Bishop McLaughlin (3-1) probably will win this district, but the Hurricanes are somewhat of a puzzle. They have quality wins against Tampa Prep (1-2) and non-district Tampa Catholic but lost to Calvary Christian (1-2) on Tuesday.

SEASON OVER: Academy at the Lakes athletic director Mark Arbet confirmed by e-mail that the Wildcats canceled their season. Arbet did not return calls requesting information on the decision.

TOP 5, STANDINGS AND STATS: This week, the Trib Top 5, standings and statistics can be found by clicking Pasco Baseball Statistics.

Correspondent Rick Harmon can be reached at tampabaystringer@gmail.com.

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