St. John’s Country Day Earns A Shot At Another State Title

The St. John’s Country Day Spartans can certainly appreciate the season that the Schoolhouse Prep Wolfpack had in order to reach Thursday’s Class 1A state semifinal, played at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers. It was only six short years ago that the Spartans first broke through to the state tournament and tasted what that experience is like, a start that ultimately led to a state championship in 2024.

Meanwhile, Schoolhouse Prep did not even exist yet at the start of that run, as the four-year old program exceeded all expectations in making this deep playoff run this year.

The final result was not entirely unexpected, as the Wolfpack were shut out 5-0 by the Spartans. St. John’s Country Day (24-8) has been to the state tournament each of the last five seasons and now will be playing in its fourth straight title game. This experienced group had a plan that they executed to perfection, and now that has earned them the chance to compete for another state championship.

“I’m real proud of the guys,” St. John’s Country Day Manager Tom Lucas said. “We kind of executed the game plan, and we bunted a lot. We were joking in the dugout that we probably set a record for the number of bunts in FHSAA history in the Final Four. But we wanted to put pressure on them, run the bases, put balls in play and then just pound the zone. You’d like to come down here and everything works according to plan, and it usually doesn’t happen. It did for us, and I feel really good about that.”

St. John’s Country Day used a small-ball approach to excess, focusing on moving base runners and keeping constant pressure on the infield defense.

“Generally speaking, if you strike out and hit fly balls, those are easy outs. So we just told the guys to buy in,” Lucas said. “This isn’t a new thing; we’ve been doing this during the year. We bunt first-and-third and safety-squeeze every day at practice for the last twelve years. I tell the guys that you might only do it one time, but the one time you do it might be to win the state championship.”

The Spartans dropped down so many bunts that it seemed like every hitter had at least one, if not more. They seemed to always have runners on base in every inning, and they were very successful in keeping constant pressure on the opposing defense.

St. John’s Country Day went ahead right away in the bottom of the first, and was able to play with the comfort of a lead from there. Hunter Rodgers walked and then came around to score the deciding run on an RBI double to left field from Madden Williams.

After grabbing that lead, the Spartans pulled away with three runs in the second. Gavin Coffey worked a lead-off walk and then stole second base, and Kaeson Johns came through with an RBI double. Chandler Dantzler dropped a bunt and reached with a base hit, and Harris followed with the same result while also allowing Chandler to score off an error.

“The other team was a very good team, with good pitching,” Schoolhouse Prep Manager Carlos Rodriguez said. “They throw a lot of strikes and very few balls. This is baseball. The team that has the much better game is going to win.”

With Spartans ace Braden Harris on the mound, any lead seemed like enough. Harris recently surpassed Nolan Ryan’s record for career strikeouts in high school during the playoff run, with over 500 career Ks, and he collected five more strikeouts against the Wolfpack.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Spartans managed to pull Harris within the pitch limit that has him still available for the title game. Gavin Coffey closed out the victory, and he also managed to stay below the pitch-limit threshold. Therefore, St. John’s Country Day will have every pitcher on its staff available for the most important game of the season.

Gavin Coffey struck out five in three-and-a-third relief innings.

The message from the players has been clear.

“They want to win. Their motto is team over me, and as a coach you are really proud of that as the culture,” Coach Lucas said. “We didn’t come down here for second place, so we’re going to put all of our chips in. When you get down here, they do not just give out rings. You’re going to have to play somebody who is really good, and you’re going to need to play pretty good baseball to win. So that’s what we expect.”

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