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Harmony's Nate O'Neill slides into home as St. Cloud catch Josh Bejarano attempts to apply the tag in Friday's 11-1 Longhorn win in the OBC championship game. PHOTO/KATIE WILLIAMS -
St. CLoud's Levi Butler (11) goes for the spike against Tohopekaliga in Friday's OBC boys volleyball championship. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON -
Championes! The Bulldogs celebrate with the OBC boys volleyball championship trophy. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON -
The Harmony Longhorns have claimed the OBC softball championship, with a 4-2 victory over rival St. Cloud. PHOTO/MARIO CASAMALHUAPA
On a night when their bats went relatively silent, Harmony used a no-hitter by Alexavier Lebron and the inability of St. Cloud pitchers to find the strike zone during an 11-1 win over the Bulldogs in the championship game of the 2024 Orange Belt Conference tournament.
“We didn’t hit the ball particularly well, but we got a great pitching performance, and we were patient at the plate,” Harmony coach Heath Williams said. “You’re not always going to pound out a bunch of hits or play great defense and that was the case tonight but there is certainly more than one way to win a ball game and we proved that tonight.”
Lebron was nothing short of sensational in capping off a strong tournament week by the Longhorns. He struck out nine and walked three in pitching his no-hitter. St. Cloud’s only run scored in the fourth inning on back-to-back Harmony infield errors.
Still, the Longhorns managed just three hits of their own, including an RBI single by Yathniel Matos in the fourth inning. However, the Longhorns were able to score 10 runs by taking advantage of nine walks, two errors, three hit batsmen, three wild pitches and a balk. It was that plate discipline that Williams said made the difference for his team.
“It’s something that we learned in the first game of the year,” he said. “We were facing one of the best pitchers in the state in Viera’s Dylan Jordan. He throws in the 90s and has a wipe-out slider, but we went in with a mindset that we weren’t going to chase pitches out of the zone and we won that game. For the most part we have followed that plan all year. We only had three hits tonight but we had good at-bats in drawing a lot of walks.”
The win capped an impressive week for the Longhorns, who shut out Liberty (10-0) and defeated Tohopekaliga (8-2) in earlier rounds. Harmony outscored its opposition 29-3 in capturing their second consecutive OBC crown.
Osceola topped Tohopekaliga, 6-1, in the 3rd place game Friday. Celebration, Poinciana, Gateway and Liberty were fifth through eight in placement games.
At Celebration, Harmony (8-7) also took the softball championship, downing St. Cloud (10-11), 4-2. Details will come later this weekend.
At Gateway, St. Cloud did get the school a trophy and a banner by downing Tohopekaliga in four games in the boys volleyball championship, 25-18, 24-26, 25-16, 25-22.
The Bulldogs (14-5) hit squad of Will Sutphen and Enrique Soto combined for 32 kills to turn aside the Cinderella story that was the Tigers (3-9), the tournament's No. 6 seed who beat No. 3 Poinciana and No. 2 Celebration earlier in the week to get to Friday's final.
St. Cloud had to overcome beating archrival Harmony in Tuesday's semifinal amid some internal adversity as Coach Ettie Singleton was not with the team; school officials at the game would not elaborate on the details of her absence.
Basketball Coach Tommy Billiterri filled in during the tournament, and said Friday he expected a competitive game from Tohopekaliga.
"They've had a strong program for years and they got here for a reason, so I made sure to keep the guys composed," he said. "It's been ... an interesting season. Me helping out is for them, because they deserve this. Will and Enrique had a great game, that how volleyball goes, that when one or two of your guys get hot, you keep going to them and it's hard to stop."
The first set was tied 9-9 before St. Cloud began pouring it on, winning that set and taking a 6-2 lead in the second before the Tigers made a run behind the hitting of Alex Llanos and Jayden Barthelemy to take the second. It was enough of a wake-up call, as the Bulldogs took a 10-2 lead to cruise to a third-set win and a 14-9 lead in the fourth.
Sutphen said the team has come together after having to deal with a bit of adversity.
"This feels great. We remember that we lost to Harmony and Toho last year," he said. "A lot of stuff's been going on, we lost a player, but everybody's pitched in to make the team better. Now it's time for districts and regionals."
That District 10 tournament begins April 29, among the county schools.
In the third place match, Celebration defeated Harmony. 21-25, 25-21, 25-22, 25-17.
