Spanish River Tops Boca In HSBN Game of the Week

Anthony Acino made the most of his first varsity start Saturday, going 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs.

All season, Spanish River has struggled with players coming through when they needed to the most.

The Sharks finally got the performance they have been searching for Saturday in a 5-2 8A-10 win over rival Boca Raton in the HSBN Game of the Week.

Spanish River (7-9, fourth in the district at 3-5) earned the win behind a strong pitching performance by Sam White and the hitting of Anthony Acino, a freshman called up from the JV team starting for the first time on varsity.

White was dominant, striking out 10 and allowing two hits and three walks in a complete-game performance.

“I came out there in the first two innings and was struggling to find my mechanics, find my rhythm,” White said. “I spoke to my [pitching coach], and we figured out in the beginning of the third inning, my knee had to get a little higher. And it really smoothed out my mechanics. Everything was going downhill and I was lucky to have all my pitches tonight, my fastball, my change-up, my curve ball. And it was a real team effort. We had some great catches. This wasn’t just me tonight. It was an all-around team effort.”

White came into the season coming off of Tommy John surgery and has made a slow progression through the season, Spanish River Manager William Harvey said.

“We started putting him in now and again, and he asked for the opportunity to start. One of our pitchers went down, so he got that opportunity, and he’s made the most of it in every one of his outings. I’ll be quite honest with you. That’s the game I thought he would throw. Doesn’t mean we’re going to win, doesn’t mean he’s going to be that successful, I expect him to go out and be a bulldog and throw pitches for strikes when he has to and get the job done. I thought he did a great job tonight.”

Boca (9-11, 3-5) took a short-lived 1-0 lead in the second as Dakotah Radabaugh hit a sacrifice fly to score Evan Lahr, but the Sharks began their attack in the third, using a three-run inning to erase the deficit. Acino doubled in Ryan Berger, who led the inning off with a double of his own. Austin Hurwitz got in on the two-bagger party and doubled home Acino along with Fenway Parks, who had been walked.

Acino’s double was the second of his three hits for the game. He also hit singles in the first and seventh innings.

“I was a little nervous obviously throughout the day,” Acino said. “I knew we had a big game against Boca. First at-bat, I didn’t want to do too much, but I went out and got a base hit.”

Acino said he was “excited” when Harvey told him he would be moving to varsity.

“I think I’ve been working hard for this,” he said.

Boca’s Brian Merritts broke up Spanish River’s no-hitter with a base hit and scored.

Harvey agrees with that, saying Acino’s “done a great job” on the JV team.

“You’re always afraid you’re going to bring up somebody and throw them in the fire and their eyes are going to get kind of big and they’ll have a deer in the headlights kind of thing,” Harvey said.

Harvey said the team used Acino in a game in Key West during their Spring Break trip and his clutch performance then helped pave the way to his first varsity start Saturday. Harvey said Acino’s performance in the Spring Break game has led his teammates to believe in him.

“Anthony has proven that he deserved the call-up, and as you saw tonight, he plays very good defense,” Harvey said. “He does swing a real good bat, and as a ninth-grader, you just get excited about getting to watch him for the next three years.”

Boca narrowed the margin to 3-2 in the fourth as Brian Merritts broke up White’s no-hitter with a two-out base hit and scored on Michael Proulx’s double.

Acino and Boomer Saraga hit back-to-back base hits and scored on an infield error in the seventh to extend the Sharks’ lead.

“When we needed to make that clutch hit or make that clutch out, we haven’t been doing that all year,” White said. “Luckily tonight we did that a couple of times, so now I’m really hoping — we play Boca in the first round of districts — and I’m really hoping we can take this momentum through the whole way. We want to be the district champions. We’ve got to start with Boca and move on to Park Vista and just keep going from there.”

Harvey said what he saw Saturday night from his team is just the players finally starting to execute what’s been talked about all season.

“Sometimes we’ve just needed to make an out and we’ve hit into double plays, so I’ve been stressing be productive in whatever it is you do,” Harvey said. “Tonight we were able to come through in the clutch. These guys are going to have to step up and come through when they have to. And I think tonight every time we had the opportunity to do that, we did. This is the kind of team we thought we would have and that’s what we showed tonight. It’s a big game, obviously. It’s a crosstown rival, and that’s what you want to have happen in those kind of games.”

The loss has Boca at the bottom of the district at 3-5. Boca Manager Rick Clagett gave all the credit to White and Spanish River for winning the big district clash.

Boca Raton principal Dr. Jeff McKee threw out the ceremonial first pitch Saturday.

“When you make three errors and get two hits, it’s tough to win baseball games,” Clagett said. “And their guy, at the end of the day, he did an outstanding job. He pitched well against us, and he kept us off-balance. We couldn’t get anything going, and when we did get something going, we couldn’t get the big hit. They came out and just flat out beat us in pretty much every aspect of the game, defensively, offensively and pitching.”

Before the game began, both teams had someone throw out a ceremonial first pitch. Both teams ended up having Dr. Jeff McKee throw the pitch.

McKee spent three years as the principal at visiting Spanish River before moving over to Boca in 2003. He has been the principal at Boca for the past nine years and is a strong supporter of the Bobcats baseball program.

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