HIGH-SCHOOL

The night the Sarasota-Manatee high school baseball season ended

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Sarasota High’s Clyde Metcalf has been the Sailors head baseball coach for 38 years. On March 13, 2020, the game against Sarasota-Tallahassee Lincoln may have been one of his more memorable – the final game his team played in 2020 because of COVID-19 concerns.

SARASOTA – The Sarasota High School baseball team had just defeated Braden River High, 4-1. It was a Wednesday night, March 11, 2020, and Sailors coach Clyde Metcalf was headed to dinner after the game with close friend Jason Renault.

“At one point, I said (to Renault), ‘You’re really being rude. We don’t get together that often. I can’t even have a conversation with you ... you’re watching TV,” Metcalf said. “He was like, ‘Are you watching what’s going on?’

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“The NBA just shut down. The NHL just shut down. When I started seeing the pro leagues start shutting down, it was only a matter of time, unfortunately.”

Yet, the Sarasota baseball team was scheduled to host Tallahassee Lincoln two days later ... and that’s when things got a little weird.

The Sailors were busy taking batting practice on Ronald K. Drews Field before the game, and the Trojans were hitting in the Sarasota High batting cages. During the pregame hitting, Lincoln coach Mike Gauger received a phone call and was told by Leon County director of athletics to put his team on the bus and head back home.

After some further conversation, the coach convinced the director of athletics to play the game.

Shortly after, another call came in, this time from Sarasota County director of athletics James Slaton. He told Metcalf that high school sports would be shut down for two weeks beginning Sunday, March 15. However, Metcalf also got permission to play the game vs. Lincoln.

So play they did, in what was likely the last high school baseball game to be played in the state of Florida in 2020.

For the record, Sarasota scored a run in the bottom of the sixth inning to tie the game at 5-all before Lincoln exploded for eight runs in the top of the ninth inning for a 13-5 victory late into the night.

Sarasota High’s Connor Whittaker remembers the final day of the 2020 high school baseball season: “That was heartbreaking; it just ended that day,” he said. “We didn’t know how severe COVID was.”

The Trojans, who were scheduled to play at Lakewood Ranch High the following day and at Venice High on Monday, got on their bus and headed back to Tallahassee.

“Well, I know we were the last game in the state of Florida,” Metcalf said. “It was a long-ass game. I thought we were going to try to play until Sunday. We got our money’s worth.”

The Sailors were scheduled for a trip across the state to Viera the following week, but it would be canceled.

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“I remember playing that game and coming out to practice the next day, and coach was telling us we might be going back out next week,” Sailors pitcher/shortstop Connor Whittaker said. “We definitely didn’t think that game was the last, but we knew that the end was close.”

Still, Metcalf gave his players workout instructions and bought each of them a two-week membership at Extra Innings, now Florida International Training Center – “so that they could continue to work out,” he said. “Obviously, it was to no avail.”

The high school spring sports season ended that Friday the 13th night.

“All the seniors were holding out hope,” Metcalf said. “It was tough on them. No graduation. No prom. No closure for them in anything.”

“We never came back out,” Whittaker said. “That was heartbreaking. It just ended that day. We didn’t know how severe COVID was. We all thought there was a possibility we would be back.”

The Sarasota High baseball team celebrates a 4-1 win at Braden River High on March 11, 2020. The Sailors would play one more game on March 13, 2020, against Tallahassee Lincoln before the season was paused and eventually called off.

Whittaker does not know where he was or what he was doing when the final decision came down, but he does remember the group chat among teammates.

“It was a terrible feeling,” he said. “We said it was a good season.”

The Sailors finished 6-5.

Now fast forward to the 2020-21 high school sports year.

Florida has been proactive in permitting high school sports to go on as planned.

Champions were crowned in fall sports, and the winter sports season just ended with boys soccer, boys basketball and wrestling state championships all wrapping up Saturday night in DeLand, Lakeland and Kissimmee, respectively.

Currently, spring sports are up and running.

“So far, we haven’t had any issues,” Whittaker said. “It feels normal, which is good. We still have half a season left. We’ve got to stay safe. We come out here with good hopes. They (fall and winter sports teams) got their seasons in, we should be able to do the same.”

“Everybody is being careful,” Metcalf added. “Everyone is doing their due diligence and doing what they need to do. As far as that’s concerned, that’s going well. Hopefully, we can keep it going well.”

Dennis Maffezzoli is the deputy sports editor for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and chief reporter for Sarasota Herald-Tribune and HTpreps covering Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties. Support local journalism by subscribing.