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Hillsborough County has moved a step closer to resuming baseball and softball at county-owned facilities — creating a process for youth and adult leagues to begin playing games and tournaments.
To receive permission to resume games on county maintained fields, each league now can submit a plan to be approved by Hillsborough County Parks & Recreation. The plan must outline what social distancing, sanitation, scheduling, and other measures the leagues will use to assure the safety of players, volunteers and fans.
Effective immediately, baseball and softball leagues can submit the plans for review to Parks & Recreation at . Parks officials will review the plans quickly and will get them back to the league with changes or approval.

Baseball and softball leagues have been allowed to use county fields for practices and conditioning for several weeks, but games and tournaments have not been permitted since late March because of COVID-19 coronavirus concerns.

County leaders made the decision to allow the resumption of baseball and softball games, and tournaments after extensive consultation with local health officials, emergency managers, Parks & Recreation staff, league officials and others.

For more information, visit HillsboroughCounty.org, or call (813) 744-5595.

The Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC) women’s cross-country team will have its first race of the 2020 season on Sept. 4, competing at the Florida Horse Park Invitational in Ocala.

This is the only PHSC fall sport undergoing an official season, due to COVID-19.

The Bobcats cross-country program — which has won four straight regional titles — began practices in mid-August.

The college’s volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball teams will entertain a fall schedule where they will play scrimmages only. Official seasons for these sports are delayed until spring term 2021.

The 2020-2021 cross-country roster features several athletes who attended local high schools  — freshman Miranda Coffey (Steinbrenner High), Emily Jenkins (Sunlake High), Gabrielle Marshall (Gaither High), Addison Paul (Land O’ Lakes native, home-schooled), Jessica Perez (Wharton High) and Sydney Stoltzfoos (Gaither High).

Dade City native Mike Penix Jr., a rising redshirt sophomore quarterback at Indiana University (IU), earned a spot on the preseason watch list for the 84th Maxwell Award, presented annually to the most outstanding player in college football. He is one of 90 college football players nationally selected to the watch list.

Penix won’t be seen in action until next year. His school’s member conference, the Big Ten, announced earlier this month it postponed its upcoming fall season to spring 2021, due to COVID-19.

The lefty thrower played his freshman and sophomore prep seasons at Pasco High School, before transferring to Tampa Bay Technical High School for his junior and senior seasons.

As a redshirt college freshman in 2019, the 6-foot-3 Penix set IU’s single-season completion percentage mark (68.8%), which also ranks sixth in Big Ten history. He completed 110 of 160 passes for 1,394 yards with 10 touchdowns and four interceptions, and he posted a 157.56 pass-efficiency rating. He also rushed for 118 yards on 22 attempts (5.4 average) with two touchdowns.

A two-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week selection, Penix averaged 232.3 passing yards and 252.2 total yards per game in six games.

Penix’s promising redshirt freshman season was cut short after he suffered a clavicle injury in an early November contest against Northwestern.

The Maxwell Award has been presented to the College Player of the Year since 1937 and is named in honor of Robert “Tiny” Maxwell, a former standout at Swarthmore College, who went on to become a renowned sportswriter and football official.

Also notable, Penix’s father was an All-State tailback/defensive back at Pasco High in the early ’90s; his uncle starred there, too.

Odessa native/Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School product Nate Pearson made his MLB (Major League Baseball) debut for the Toronto Blue Jays late last month.

On July 29, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound hard-throwing righthander pitched five scoreless innings against the defending World Series champion Washington Nationals at National Park, striking out five batters, while allowing two hits and two walks in a 4-0 loss.

The 23-year-old has been regarded as one of baseball’s top prospects since becoming a first round draft pick in 2017, out of Ocala’s College of Central Florida.

Pearson rose through the minor league ranks over the past three seasons, posting a combined 2.17 ERA, 0.87 WHIP and 146 strikeouts in 123.1 innings from rookie ball through Triple-A.

Pearson is regarded for a fastball that touches 100 mph, along with a slider, changeup and curveball.

Pearson graduated from Bishop McLaughlin in 2015, where he guided the program to the Class 3A state semifinals.

He spent a portion of the leaguewide COVID-19 shutdown in Tampa, training with other professional athletes at Yo Murphy Performance.

The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) postponed the start date of fall sports until Aug 24, after FHSAA Board of Directors last month voted 11-4 to do so.

The move comes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

FHSAA supervises and regulates interscholastic athletic programs for high school students at member public, private and charter schools. Head­quartered in Gainesville, it is the official governing body for interscholastic athletics in Florida.

The association’s staff is working to come up with alternate plans for the 2020-2021 school year and will present such a plan to the board during the week of Aug. 10.

In corresponding action, the Pasco County school district has gone a step further — announcing it has pushed back the beginning of all fall sports to Sept. 7, meaning tryouts for all middle school and high school sports won’t begin until then.

The Hillsborough County school district moved the start of its fall sports season to Aug. 10.

Fall sports affected include bowling, cross-country, football, golf, swimming and diving, and volleyball.

Saint Leo University men’s basketball recent graduate Kyran McLure has signed an overseas professional contract with Omladinski Kosarkaski Klub (OKK) Novi Pazar, a Serbia-based basketball club.

The 6-foot-2, 170-pound guard led Saint Leo in scoring the last two seasons, including averaging 20.8 points per game in 2019-2020 and 17.1 in 2018-2019.

McClure, a two-time All-Sunshine State Conference selection, ranks inside the top 10 in Lions history in three career categories — free throws made (second, 451), three-point field goals made (fourth, 193), and assists (ninth, 276), while sitting in 11th all-time in points scored (1,374). He also holds two program records for a single season mark, including free throws (207) and three-pointers made (96), both set during his senior season.

McClure played three seasons for Saint Leo, transferring from Navy after his freshman year. He is a native of Concord, North Carolina.

McClure joins an overseas club that is coming off a 17-9 record Basketball League of Serbia, along with an 8-14 mark in ABA (Adriatic Basketball Association) League 2 play.

Saint Leo University’s member athletic conference — the Sunshine State Conference (SSC) — announced it has postponed all scheduled competitions in the fall sports season, due to COVID-19.

The decision, made by the SSC Presidents Council, affects men’s soccer, women’s soccer, men’s cross-country, women’s cross-country, and women’s volleyball.

It also affects any fall schedules for the spring sports of men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s golf, women’s golf, baseball, softball, and women’s rowing.

A news release says another decision will be made no later than Oct. 1 regarding whether the winter sports of men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s swimming, and women’s swimming can compete in the fall 2020 semester.
As of now, the conference is planning to conduct competition for the fall sports and the spring sports in the spring 2021 semester.

During postponement of competition, student-athletes will be able to do conditioning, strength training, and have other practice opportunities in all sports during the fall 2020 semester — as long as health and safety conditions allow such activities.

Saint Leo is one of 11 member institutions in the NCAA Division II Florida-based conference. Other Tampa Bay area schools in the SSC include Eckerd College (St. Petersburg), Florida Southern College (Lakeland) and the University of Tampa.

Sunlake High graduate Ludcheel Colas signed a track and field athletic scholarship with Southern Wesleyan University, an NCAA Division II program in Central, South Carolina. Colas helped set two school track records at Sunlake, as a leg of the boys 4 x 400- and 4 x 800-meter relay squads. He also was a member of the school’s varsity football team, playing running back and outside linebacker.