Countryside Baseball District Tournament Preview

As Countryside starts district play today here is an overview of their season and how they look for the tournament.

The Cougars won their first four games, lost their next two and have been up and down the rest of the year.

But they have a great shot at getting out of districts. It’s more a question of can they as the no. 1 or no. 2 seed. Their district tournament starts at 7 p.m. today (April 26) playing against North Port.

The Cougars have a mean one-two punch on the mound. Left-handers and are extremely stingy and both have great moves to first base.

Ballantoni, Monda and senior right-hander, Chris Frey lead District 7 in strikeouts.Ballantoni has a 2.50 ERA and Monda is at 2.78. Monda is the punchout king with 77 strikeouts (seventh in the state) with 27 walks. Frey also has six wins and a 1.95 ERA, both of which lead District 7.

Ballantoni, Monda and Frey usually hit one-two-and-three in the batting order as well. Ballantoni is a terror on the base paths and Coach Kemo O’Sullivan likes to put pressure on opposing teams.

They’ve been up much more than down as their 14-7 record would indicate. The Cougars, although they play all of 5A District 11, they are not in District 11. Thus they do not have two games against all of those opponents, although they do get two games against: Clearwater, East Lake and Tarpon Springs. However 6A District 7 is no picnic either. The Cougars have taken two games from Palm Harbor Uuniversity and own the tiebreaker over Riverview, St. Pete and North Port.

6A District 7 looks like this:

Sarasota: 6-0 (district) 13-7 (overall)

Countryside: 4-2 (district); 15-8 (overall)

Riverview: 4-2-1 (district); 12-9-1 (overall)

Palm Harbor University: 2-3 (district); 8-13 (overall)

St. Petersburg: 1-3-1 (district); 8-7-1 (overall)

North Port: 0-6 (district); 4-18 (overall)