SARASOTA — East Lake knew winning at Sarasota, No. 9 in USA Today’s national rankings, would take a total team effort and extraordinary performances.
Wednesday, the Eagles used 18 players and got 10 dominant innings from pitchers Brad Deppermann and Steven Plaskett to upset the Sailors 2-1 in a Class 7A, Region 3 quarterfinal.
The win sets up a fourth game with Northeast.
“We got electric pitching,” Eagles coach Dan Genna said. “To play 10 innings and only give up three hits to the high-powered Sailor offense was phenomenal.”
Deppermann pitched the first seven innings and gave up one run on three hits while striking out six. Plaskett pitched the last three and gave up zero hits and runs while striking out five.
East Lake scored its first run in the fourth with help from the Sailors. Nick DeSantis, who had three singles, singled up the middle. Riley Choate pinch ran and stole second. Cameron Churchill hit a high chopper to third, and on the high throw to first, Choate came around to score.
Sarasota tied it in the bottom of the inning. Brandon Chapman walked. Matt Schlabach executed a hit-and-run to put runners on the corners. And Mason Dancer hit a sacrifice fly to right to drive in pinch-runner Shelby Banks.
Both teams had chances to win late. Sarasota left a man at third in the seventh, and East Lake failed on a suicide squeeze in the ninth.
In the 10th, Deppermann singled up the middle with one out and moved to second on a groundout. Keegan Maronpot followed with a double to right-center to score Deppermann. Plaskett pitched a perfect 10th to close out the Sailors.
“You can’t just come here and play with them,” Genna said. “You have to take this game away from them. In any other game where we had 11 hits, we would put up six or seven runs. Sarasota made that difficult.”
Now comes Northeast.
“We have played three nail-biters before,” Genna said. “We know it will be close, but we can throw anybody.”