Coral Glades Shuts Out Atlantic to Clinch 8A-14 Top Seed

Cadarius Gaskin allowed one earned run on five hits and no walks, and he struck out three for the Eagles.

During the course of every season there come points where the team faces challenges it has to overcome. The Atlantic Eagles find themselves in just such a scenario, following a difficult stretch of games that culminated in a 3-0 shutout defeat to host Coral Glades on Tuesday evening. Veteran manager Steve Wilson is hoping that a quick reset will help everyone refocus and bounce back together.

“We called off practice for tomorrow so everybody can clear their heads,” Wilson said following Tuesday’s loss. “We played a lot of baseball last week in a tournament up north, so hopefully we are going to be able to come back and put it together when we play Spanish River. We keep playing and try to eliminate the mistakes that we made tonight, and we work harder on fundamentals. One thing about district playoffs is that we all start on the same page at 0-0, and if we do what we need to do we hope to be able to move on.”

Atlantic (8-8) is now 1-3 in 8A-14 with a rematch with Spanish River still looming. Regardless of that outcome those two teams already know they will match up again in the opening round of the district tournament at the end of the season. The time between now and then will be spent getting Atlantic ready for that challenge.

“I’ve done this a long time and my coaching staff has done this a long time, and I see glimpses of improvement, but we’re going up and down and we can’t get anyone to go up the ladder steadily to the top,” Wilson explained. “We’re going to work harder at that, and it is not for lack of effort. We’ll take it one game at a time and try to climb up that ladder.”

Justin Varisco was 1-for-3 with a single and also struck out three in a relief appearance.

Although the ebb and flow was not in perfect unison, the Eagles still managed base runners in all but one inning. They nearly avoided the shutout after threatening with runners on the corners in the top of the first, after Alexis Vega walked and Shelby Frazier reached on a fielder’s choice. Justin Varisco put a nice swing on the ball but the liner went straight into the shortstop’s glove, ending the inning and stranding both base runners. Atlantic stranded seven base runners on the night.

Starter Cadarius Gaskin delivered a quality start to keep his club in the game. The right-hander left with one out in the fifth inning after allowing one earned run on five hits. Gaskin struck out three and did not walk anyone. He showed excellent command in throwing 43 of his 61 total pitches for strikes.

Matt Sheridan had a nice day at the plate to lead the offense. Sheridan collected the Eagles’ first hit of the night in the top of the second inning when he jumped on the first pitch he saw and plunked a double just out of reach of the diving right fielder. The third baseman picked up his second hit of the game in the seventh, when he tried to jump-start a rally by rolling a lead-off single up the middle.

Cameron Husing reached base twice in three plate appearances on Tuesday.

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