By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

What was a day of joy for the Harmony baseball program became an evening of concern late Wednesday when pitcher Alex “A.J.” Stevens was involved in a two-car accident around 10 p.m. following the school’s regional softball playoff game.

Stevens, a junior, struck out 10 on the mound and delivered two hits, including an RBI double that gave the Longhorns the lead, Wednesday afternoon in a 5-3 victory in the Class 4A District 6 tournament semifinal at St. Cloud High.

The win put the team into Friday night’s championship game against Eustis and earned it a spot in Tuesday’s regional playoffs.

Wednesday night, following the softball team’s 11-4 win over Dunnellon in the Region 2 quarterfinals, Stevens and softball player Breann Vanderzyl were hurt when her vehicle was hit on the driver’s side on U.S. Highway 192  outside Harmony High School.

Stevens was in the passenger seat, and was originally sent to St. Cloud Regional Medical Center before being sent on to Orlando Regional Medical Center with a concussion and a possible bruised sternum, according to HHS Athletic Director Chuck Hitt.

Baseball coach Mike Fields visited the players Thursday afternoon in Orlando and said both were recovering.

“They were both in their rooms. A.J. got a pretty good lick and was really out of it, but it sounds like they’re both going to be OK,” he said. “You go from being on top of the world to this happening, it’s very scary.”

Fields said they’d play it by ear as far as Stevens being available for Tuesday’s playoff game.

“It’s up to whether the doctors clear him, but I’m sure that’s the least of the worries for a lot of people,” he said. “Baseball is secondary right now.

“I met with the team (Thursday morning) and the biggest concern was the unknown because we hadn’t heard anything. But thank goodness, it sounds like they really dodged a bullet.”

The concern Thursday was the opposite of the positive vibes the team had leaving St. Cloud on Wednesday after rallying from a 3-0 deficit with a four-run fifth inning.

Fields was then left to chew his fingernails in the dugout in the seventh inning when Tavares loaded the bases, but Stevens struck out Jordan Biting, who gave Tavares a first-inning lead with a two-run home run, to end the game.

“Had them all the way, didn’t we?” Fields said with a wry smile following the game. “Man, what a great game. I’m so proud of the kids for sticking with it.

“We’re so young, so few of them have been in a district tournament, you have to hammer into them, ‘This is final, there’s no more if we don’t win.’ I guess they took the message.”

The Longhorns (16-8) trailed 3-0 in fourth inning, despite getting leadoff runners aboard in the second and third innings and loading the bases in the third with one out. Sophomore first baseman Wyatt Dering made it 3-1 with a fourth-inning home run to center, and then in the fifth inning it all came together.

Omar Villamon walked and Tommy Lopez singled to lead off. Tyler Whitney then laid down a good bunt and reached when Tavares’ throw to first went into right field; Villamon and Lopez scored on the play.

Stevens then doubled to center to score Whitney and give Harmony a 4-3 lead. He went to third on Anthony Grego’s subsequent single.

With one out, third baseman Trent Fields put down a perfect safety squeeze on an 0-2 pitch that Stevens easily scored on to make it 5-3.

“We had to get those bunts down, and Trent is a good bunter,” Coach Fields, Trent’s father, said. “Those are plays we have to make to win. Tavares is a real good team.”

Stevens gave up a double, single and walk to load the bases with two outs in the seventh but got Biting out looking on an 0-2 changeup on the outside corner of the plate.

Stevens, after Wednesday’s game, said his approach never changed even with pitching from behind.

“It was upsetting, but my job is to throw strikes and I kept pitching to keep us in the game,” he said.

“We did a good job getting back into it and everybody did a good job doing something to get us the lead.”

And that seventh inning?

“I never had my heart beat that fast on the mound,” he said.

Harmony is in the regional playoffs for the second time the school’s seven-year history. The Longhorns won the 4A District 7 title in 2008.

“I’m so proud of these guys. They keep on just doing what we ask them to,” Fields said of a team that started three sophomores in the infield on Wednesday.

In Wednesday’s other semifinal, top-seeded Eustis (23-3) easily dispatched host St. Cloud, 13-1.

In the 5A-5 tournament at Sebring, Liberty lost to Winter Haven, 5-0.