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Pasco Eases Past South Florida

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Chaz Abeln had a solid outing in Saturday's loss to Pasco-Hernando.

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By MARK PINSON Highlands Today

Published: March 9, 2009

HERNANDO - A tough one to lose.

The South Florida Community College baseball team let a late three-run lead evaporate in dropping a 4-3 Suncoast Conference game in 11 innings to Pasco-Hernando CC on Saturday.

The Panthers led 3-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning behind the strong pitching of right-hander Chaz Abeln.

But a leadoff infield error and some key hits fueled a rally as Pasco tied the game at 3.

South Florida had a golden scoring chance go by the board when the Panthers failed to get a runner home from third base with no outs.

"We had three very poor at-bats with the runner at third and no outs," said SFCC coach Rick Hitt. "That's very uncharacteristic of us and it came at a bad time."

Pasco was able to push across the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning to steal the win from the Panthers.

The loss dropped South Florida, the ninth-ranked team in the state, to 20-7 overall and 1-1 in Suncoast Conference play.

"Chaz pitched very well and we had our chances," Hitt said. "We struck out eleven times and we didn't show a whole lot of discipline at the plate.

"I'm disappointed in some of the mistakes we made and we've got to improve on those and get some things cleaned up."

South Florida is back on the diamond today when the Panthers host Pasco-Hernando at 5 p.m.

"We've played two close games with Pasco and we won the first one because we executed and we lost today because we didn't," said Hitt. "We felt like we gave one away today and we need to get back to playing solid baseball."

Mark Pinson can be reached at 863-386-5837 or mpinson@highlandstoday.com

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