As the name states, spring break is a time for students to have a break from school. However, for student-athletes they may not be in school but they are not missing out on the opportunity to represent their school on the playing field.
Both the Ponte Vedra High baseball and softball teams, as well as the Nease High baseball squad played their share of games in various spring break tournaments during the week off.
The Sharks baseball team dominated in the three games they played, including sweeping a doubleheader March 14 with victories over Beachside 10-0 and Crescent City 22-2 in five innings, respectively.
Senior Braden Kessel drove in six runs against Beachside and came up a single shy of hitting for the cycle, while nine different players drove in a run in the lopsided performance over the Raiders.
They followed it with a convincing 14-5 win against Eustis, and the bats coming alive is something that the Sharks will want to build upon heading into the second half of the season.
Kessel was back at it for the Sharks in the 14-run outing as he and fellow senior Ethan Yesensky both had home runs.
Nease baseball had a busy week playing games in four straight days during the spring break week.
Three of those contests were against high schools from Oklahoma while the other was pitted against one from Tennessee.
The Panthers seemed to handle the tough out-of-state competition nicely, taking two of four games, as they defeated Choctaw 8-2 and Norman (Oklahoma) North 8-7, while falling to Yukon 7-0 and Knoxville (Tennessee) Catholic 8-3.
However, facing different competition outside of the usual suspects within the state of Florida was a different experience for the Panthers and a memory that they will surely have from this season.
For the Nease softball squad, they welcomed in Heritage High of Maryville, Tennessee and lost 7-6 in a close one that was back and forth throughout.
After the Panthers scored three in the bottom of the sixth to take a 6-5 lead, Heritage responded with a pair of runs of their own in the top of the seventh and was able to hold on to narrowly defeat the Panthers.
Juniors Corinna Cioffi and Taylor Burton each had two RBIs apiece in the game. Burton also successfully stole a base in the contest.
