BRANDON - In most seasons, Bloomingdale and Chamberlain take advantage of the spring break to travel to other parts of Florida to challenge teams outside the Tampa Bay area. However, schedules from the other areas didn't line up this year and the two state powerhouses will beef up an already tough lineup for the 2004 Jon Sinclair Memorial Spring Fling Invitational Softball Tournament.
The spring fling is scheduled to start at noon today and finish with the championship game scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday, at J.C. Handley Field in Brandon off South Kings Ave.
Bloomingdale, ranked No. 2 in Florida for Class 6A, and Chamberlain, defending Class 5A state champion, will be piled up in the top quarter of the lower bracket along with top ranked 2A Academy of Holy Names and the surprising Armwood Hawks with a 7-2 record.
Once those four teams beat each other up in the first two games Friday, the winner will go to the noon Saturday semifinals with the last team standing after Countryside, Brandon, East Bay and Mariana High slug it out.
"We have a tough bracket, starting with Armwood, but we always use spring break competition to start our state run," Chamberlain coach Bob Diez said. "There is a good mix of teams in this tournament. We have a few bumps and bruises, but we are ready to play."
In the top bracket, host Riverview starts with Robinson at noon and a win will put them in round two with the King/Alonso winner.
The big game in the lower quarter of the top bracket pits once-beaten River Ridge with a young, but tough Plant Panther squad. The winner faces the survivor of the Sarasota Riverview/Ocala Forest game for a semifinal berth.
River Ridge is one of the favorites to earn a berth in the final four this year, but Plant is starting to come together. Even with a young team, the Panthers are skilled and capable of making it all the way to the championship game Saturday.
Academy is another young team and it has only 13 players on the squad. Freshmen and sophomores make up more than half the team. The team is 9-1.
However, the Jaguars have senior Jennifer Jacobs, one of the top pitchers in Hillsborough County and probably Florida too. In 48 innings on the mound, she is 6-l, with 94 strikeouts and an ERA of 0.00.
She is also great at the plate. Jacobs has 17 RBI, scored 10 runs and is hitting .621.
