Olympia baseball trending up coming out of spring break | Observer Preps

SANFORD — The Olympia baseball team has won nine of its past 10 games after taking three of the four games it played in the Florida League High School Invitational's "The Classic" tournament last week in Seminole County.

The Titans, who are 10-4 so far this spring, have gone 9-2 so far in March — getting the ball club back on track after it lost its first two games of the season.

“We’re playing better ball — we’ve been taking advantage of opportunities teams have been giving us,” head coach Chuck Schall said after Olympia's 16-2 win against Suncoast March 23. “Today’s game right here, every time they gave us an opportunity, we were able to capitalize.”

During the Classic, the Titans also defeated University High (Orlando) 7-1 and Leesburg 3-1 during the five-day event, which included games at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium, Seminole High and the Boombah Sports Complex. Olympia's sole loss of the event came by way of a 7-3 to Seminole High.

The Titans will return to district play this week, where they are 2-0 after sweeping Wekiva in games played March 7 and March 9. Olympia will take on Class 9A, District 3 foe Lake Brantley (6-4, 1-1 district), which split its first district series with Apopka. The Titans will travel to face the Patriots at 7 p.m. March 28 before hosting Lake Brantley at 4:30 p.m. March 30.

Olympia's strong stretch has seen several players contribute in several ways.

Collin McMahon and Richey Lakes lead the team in hits (18) while McMahon also leads the team in RBIs (15). Austin Vetter has Olympia's sole home run of the spring so far — one of six extra-base hits — as well as 14 RBIs. Lakes has scored a team-high 21 runs so far, with Alex Britton, Chase Dunlap and Jaxon Bambei each having scored 11 times.

On the mound, Matt Cobb and Jacob Drury have led the way, with 44.2 innings between them. Drury has three wins to his credit along with 24 strikeouts, while Cobb has an impressive 0.875 ERA. Their strong performances have helped to offset the need for standout Jeslyn Whitehead to play shortstop, moving him to more of a relief pitching role — Whitehead has two saves and has pitched 14.1 innings for Olympia.

"We've got some key guys that are starting to play better," Schall said.