Osceola senior Maria Nunez doubled twice scored three times and Natalia Ferrer drove three runs in as the Kowboys downed St. Cloud, 7-0, Friday, in county softball action.
And now, we wait.
The game will be the last interscholastic athletic event in the county for a while, as the state has mandated schools be shuttered the next two weeks — next week is Spring Break anyway — and athletic games and practices be canceled through March 31 in order to practice “social distancing” to avoid possible spreading of coronavirus.
But seniors on each team — St. Cloud particularly — were saying a few farewells, just in case the closure goes longer, through the late April end of the season. Earlier in the day, Coach Ray Whobrey hastily put together a Senior Night ceremony pre-game and got the game pushed back for his six seniors. But it was Osceola (8-3) who owned the night, particularly late in the game.
It was a close 1-0 game through four innings after senior Audra Thompson tripled home Nayeli Hernandez in the first. But then Kayley Jones was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the fourth, Ferrer, another senior, hit a two-run single followed by an RBI hit by Jones in the fifth to make it 5-0.
“The girls really came out to play. It was a really well-played game, it would be really hard to shut it down now,” OHS Coach Miranda Watford said. “We know we’re down until the end of the month, from there we’ll take it day by day.”
They will be nervous days, as the annual Roger Jones Kissimmee Klassic (April 2-4) and the Orange Belt Conference tournament (April 6-9) are scheduled right after the earliest date the shutdown could end.
Here’s hoping those seniors get more games to play.
In the second-to-last county athletic event before the shutdown, Eau Gallie topped St. Cloud, 4-3, in a girls tennis match.
