Lake Brantley debuts at No. 5 overall in FHSAA baseball power rankings

Lake Brantley baseball coach Eric Entrekin has been pleasantly surprised by his team’s hot start to the season.

“Our pitching is doing a lot better than what we expected,” Entrekin said. “We just had so many unknowns entering the season, but we’re pitching really well and putting up a lot of runs offensively each game, and those two things go hand in hand.”

The Patriots (10-1) entered Wednesday’s game at Lake Highland Prep (5-5) ranked No. 5 among all classifications and No. 3 in Class 7A in the first FHSAA power rankings of the season. The rankings will be used to seed district tournaments that begin April 26.

Class 5A’s Tampa Jesuit (11-1) debuted as the FHSAA’s overall No. 1 team.

Lake Brantley sits behind Parkland Stoneman Douglas (14-1) and Palm Beach Gardens (12-1) in 7A. Other Orlando area programs highly ranked in the state’s largest classification include No. 9 Orange City University (9-1), No 11 Winter Park (11-1) and No. 13 Apopka (11-1).

University is playing this week in the Florida League High School Invitational in Sanford. Five players have tallied at least 10 hits this season for the Titans, including junior Evan Koehler, who is batting .567 (17-for-30) with 10 RBIs and five extra-base hits.

Oviedo’s Isaiah Barkett and West Orange pitcher Will Ross were named Florida League tournament players of the week last week. Hagerty’s Rylan Townsend earned MVP honors in the championship game while allowing just two hits in five innings as the Huskies defeated Lake Howell 2-1.

Lake Brantley lost 11-5 to Oviedo (10-6) in the championship game of its own season-opening tournament Feb. 19 before outscoring the Lions by a combined 15-6 in back-to-back outings the very next week.

Senior outfielder Matthew Delay has seven multi-hit games for the Patriots and is batting .515 (17-for-33) with 12 RBIs, seven extra-base hits and 16 runs scored. Junior pitcher Eduardo Adrian is 3-0 with a 0.90 earned run average. Senior Connor Hensley is 3-0 with a 1.75 ERA on the mound and 9-for-24 (.375) at the plate with 10 RBIs and five doubles.

Lake Brantley has gotten quality at-bats throughout its lineup while hitting .305 as a team with 23 doubles and six home runs in all.

“I’m really pleased with the bottom third of our lineup because they’re really producing runs for us right now,” Entrekin said.

Winter Springs (10-2) is No. 5 and Harmony (9-3-1) ranks No. 15 in Class 6A. The Bears will likely drop next week after losing for the third time late Tuesday during an 11-3 setback at Oviedo.

Harmony is batting .301 as a collective with a 1.69 team ERA. Junior Pablo Torres and sophomore Caden Scarborough have combined to strike out 52 batters in 381/2 innings of work.

The First Academy (13-1), which lost for the only time 5-4 in nine innings at Bishop Moore (4-8), ranks No. 12 in 3A. Mount Dora Christian (7-4) ranks No. 14 in 2A.

TFA is led by a strong junior class that includes Florida State commit Ben Barrett, who is batting .438 (14-for-32) with 10 RBIs. Barrett is also 4-1 on the mound with a 2.03 ERA and 30 strikeouts in 20? innings. Shortstop Greg Pettay, a UCF commit, is 10-for-23 (.435) with a team-high 14 runs scored and 10 RBIs.

This article originally appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email J.C. Carnahan at jcarnahan@orlandosentinel.com.