Day: January 14, 2016

Wiregrass Ranch girls hoopsters cement selves as district’s team to beat

By Andy Warrener

It’s still another week before district basketball tournaments heat up for area teams, but any suspense about who might be the Class 7A, District 8 top seed was quickly quashed coming out of Christmas break.

Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) opened the new year with consecutive victories over what was expected to be its stiffest competition – Freedom, Plant and Steinbrenner — to clinch the top seed for the 7A-8 tournament starting Jan. 26 at Plant. WRH, now 20-2 on the season heading into tonight’s game at Tampa Catholic, will play Leto in the quarterfinals.

The day before, the WRH girls completed the regular season sweep of second-seeded Plant, doing so with star player Trakyra Kidd in foul trouble. Kidd got into foul trouble in the first half, and had to sit out for much of the second.

Without Kidd, the Bulls ended the third period on a 6-0 run. When Kidd returned in the fourth, the Bulls put Plant away 63-50.

“That win was a big moment for us moving forward,” WRH head coach John Gant said. “It was concrete that we saw when she (Kidd) wasn’t on the floor that we were not going to fold our tent, that we can play and play well without her.”

The Bulls and Kidd would follow up that performance the next night on the road against the Patriots. While Freedom kept the game close through the third period, Kidd went off in the fourth, scoring 12 of her 24 points and hitting all six of her free throws, making her 10-for-10 from the charity stripe on the night. The Bulls prevailed 49-43 and clinched the top spot in 7A-8, and two days beat Steinbrenner 54-42.

The Bulls host Sickles Friday in a 7A-8 contest.

Gant and Kidd lead one of the better girls basketball teams in the area. The Bulls have dropped only two games this season — a two-point loss to Seffner Christian in the season opener and a one-point loss to Palm Beach Gardens at the Florida Prospects Tournament in Orlando.

Three points are all that separates the Bulls from an unblemished record. Kidd has been a driving force in that endeavor.

“She has a mentality that she will not be stopped,” Gant said. “She has a nose for the goal and when you have lightning quickness and someone tries to stop you, it’s very difficult.

“She is one of the top two athletes in the area. This season, her maturity and her basketball intelligence have combined extremely well. She’s a coach’s dream. She makes me look good when the ball’s in her hands.”

Kidd is averaging just over 16.1 points per game, after scoring 9.8 last year. She also averages 6.4 rebounds, 5.5 steals and 4.3 assists a game.

Kidd has lots of help from a well-balanced WRH team.

Junior forward Stephanie Brower, who is averaging 10.7 points and 8.8 rebounds a game, is one of the team’s most potent inside threats.

“She (Brower) is the second-best athlete on the team and plays tremendous defense,” Gant said. “She has great basketball intelligence and she’s one of the key leaders when TK (Kidd) is out.”

Junior guard Melissa Gordon is the team’s deep threat. Gordon has nailed 29 of the team’s 41 three-pointers this season and presents a great second option to Kidd.

“She (Gordon) has been hitting key shots for us this year,” Gant said. “She’s very difficult to guard.”

Sophomore guard Alexis Boldon and junior forward Nicole Carey are additional threats.

“Boldon has that wiry, won’t quit attitude,” Gant says. “She’s one that always has the motor running and can help handle the ball…and she plays well inside.”

Junior guard Brooke Preiser comes off the bench and averages more than four points a game. Senior forward Alima James adds some more force inside with rebounding and blocked shots.

As the district playoffs loom, the Bulls have an extra layer of confidence knowing they can keep the train on the rails even without Kidd.

“The Plant game made me happy because I could see that even if I get in foul trouble, we’ll be more confident knowing the team can handle it,” Kidd said.

Once bitten, but not shy, boy back at school after snake encounter

Sabrina Mize was watching her 8-year-old son Dylan jumping on a trampoline in a friend’s backyard in Quail Hollow before he jumped off to chase a ball barefoot through the grass.

A few seconds later, he was running towards her.

“Mom, I got bit by a snake,’’ he told her.

Sabrina didn’t believe it at first.

“Did he just say what I thought he said?,’’ she thought.

Sure enough, upon further inspection, Dylan’s left ankle had two small, but very defined, puncture marks.

While Dylan had snake venom in his veins, Sabrina must have had ice water running through hers.

After getting some ice for his foot, she went hunting for the snake, hoping to identify it and praying it wasn’t poisonous. About a foot-and-a-half long, she found it where her son had likely stepped on it, prompting the bite. She inched closer, within ten feet or so, and snapped a quick picture of the red-and-orange-colored snake on her cell phone before returning to her son.

All the while, she stayed calm, cool and collected.

“Because my son was calm, I was calm,’’ Sabrina says. “He was upset when I went to go find the snake, but that was really it.”

Sabrina sent the picture to a friend, asking if she knew what kind of a snake it was. That’s when Facebook sprung into action.

Shortly after her friend took the photo and posted it on the more-than- 8,000-member-strong Wesley Chapel Community Facebook page, local animal specialist Chris Wirt (we featured him in our issue dated October 24, 2015) received a message on his cellphone. He had been tagged in the Facebook post.

There is a friendly, running joke on the Facebook page about snakes and Wirt, the former Wesley Chapel resident who owns A All Animal Control of Tampa Bay. It seems like at least once a week, someone in the Wesley Chapel Community is tagging him and hoping he can identity some creature that has camped out on someone’s porch or driveway to help determine the level of danger to the home’s inhabitants and pets.

And, it doesn’t just happen on the Wesley Chapel Community page. Wirt estimates that he receives five requests a day calling on his expertise with all kinds of critters from across the Bay area.

In this case, Wirt knew the snakebite was nothing to trifle with — he replied that Dylan had been bitten by a cottonmouth, a highly venomous type of water moccasin.

Sabrina already was at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC) when she received the news, about an hour after Dylan had been bit. Dylan was then transported to Florida Hospital Tampa because it has inpatient pediatric beds (FHWC does not). There, he was treated with anti-venin to combat the dangerous bite.

Sometimes, anti-venin isn’t necessary, even when the victim is bitten by a venomous snake. According to the Tampa Poison Center website, 25 percent of snakebites are “dry bites,” where no venom is introduced to the body.

In Dylan’s case, the swelling had worsened, and had moved up his leg and was now creeping up the back of his calf. Sabrina said the bottom half of his leg “blew up so much you couldn’t touch the skin; it was so tight and so hard.”

Dylan received a treatment of antivenin at 8 p.m. His body reacted well to it, so he received two more treatments over the next twelve hours.

Sometimes, like in the case of Hope Allen, the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce president, more drastic measures are required. In 2014, Allen was bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake — which Wirt says is the most common snake he comes across in Wesley Chapel — and required 18 vials of anti-venin and a five-day stay at FHWC, including two in the Intensive Care Unit.

“(Dylan) might have only gotten a little tiny bite of the venom,’’ Wirt said. “But if you don’t pay attention to what’s going on and keep running around or whatever, it could start eating away at the muscle or nerve…and it could absolutely be fatal. The 5-to-6 deaths we see every year, though, are usually because the people bit are someplace where they can’t get medical care.”

After two days in the hospital, Tampa Poison Control cleared the Veterans Elementary second-grader for a Wednesday release. The hospital kept him an additional night, just to be safe.

Sabrina said Dylan, who returned to school last week and is now off crutches, was probably more upset about the extra night in the hospital than he was about getting bitten by the cottonmouth.

On Thursday, Dylan was cleared by his doctors and left the hospital in a wheelchair.

The next day, he was back at the same friend’s house, whose yard had been cleared and treated for free by Wirt. Dylan spent most of New Year’s Eve sitting in a chair with his leg elevated, holding a stick wrapped in the skin of the snake that bit him, compliments of a neighbor who had killed it.

Wirt is currently offering his snake service for $175 (it normally costs $250), which includes clearing the yard of any snake dens or nests and treating the perimeter of the yard and the house. He can be reached at tampa@aallanimalcontrol, or visit AAllAnimalControl.com/tampa.

Meadow Pointe community pitches in to help fire recovery

Donna Kriston Farley hadn’t lived in Wesley Chapel long enough to expect her Heatherstone at Meadow Pointe neighbors, many she didn’t even know yet, to rally to her aid when her house caught fire on New Year’s Day.

But, that’s exactly what happened.

Thanks to neighbors like Jessica Beagle and Alyssa Hall, who sprung into action almost immediately, Farley, the mother of a 17-year-old son and 8-year-old triplets, watched as a section of the community clubhouse soon filled up with tables piled high with children’s clothes, toys, scooters, bikes, toiletries and “a ton of gift cards,’’ Beagle said.

Farley’s neighbors also set up a page at Facebook.com/HelpTheFarley Family to coordinate donations and a GoFundMe.com page at GoFundMe.com/6jhgwc7k.

Farley was inside the home on New Year’s Day when she smelled smoke and realized something was on fire. The blaze started in the garage, which served as a playroom for the kids, and soon engulfed the front of the house.

Beagle, who teaches 6th grade at John Long Middle School, was down the street playing outside with her daughter, who thought she saw fire. Beagle told her daughter since there were no fire trucks, they we’re okay.

“But, that’s when we heard the fire trucks,’’ Beagle says.

Neighbors tried to control the fire with extinguishers, and Beagle said she said a prayer for Farley and the family.

Soon after, she was asking what she could do to help.

“Everything just escalated from there,’’ Beagle said.

By Saturday, the help poured in.

Farley, who moved to Wesley Chapel from California three months ago, was in tears as she explained to Beagle how overwhelmed she was.

“These people don’t even know me,’’ Farley said. “I’ve never even met any of my neighbors. I feel so bad now. I was questioning whether Wesley Chapel was the area for me. But no more.”

That’s the way every community should be, Beagle thinks. It didn’t matter how many friends Farley had made, Beagle said she knew she had to do something and it wasn’t long before dozens of others in Heatherstone had banded together with her. She reached out to Hall, who was able to reach even more people to help.

“The most amazing thing is, there were kids who were bringing their Christmas presents, that they had just gotten, to the clubhouse to donate,’’ Beagle says.

The house is being rebuilt, and Farley says she plans to move back in to the neighborhood.

Sophia's lemonade stand raising money for K-9 safety

By Celeste McLaughlin

Sophia Contino, who lives in Meadow Pointe and attends Sand Pine Elementary, is an eight year old who wants to save lives. More specifically, she wants to save canine lives by providing the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO)’s K-9 officers with bulletproof vests.

Sophia’s dad, Jason, first heard about the need to supply vests for the Pasco Sheriff’s K-9 unit at the June 2, 2015, meeting of the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC), of which he is a member. He told Sophia what he had heard, and she came up with the idea of having a lemonade stand, where all of raised the money would be donated to the K-9 cause.

“The reason I am raising money is, I love dogs and I love people,” says Sophia in a video on her Facebook page, which already has been viewed more than 1,000 times at Facebook.com/SophiaPCSOK9 (or search “Sophia’s PCSO K9 Association Campaign”).

Her dad says the Continos don’t currently have a dog at home, and Sophia may be trying to fill a void left by the loss of their beloved black lab, Payton, who passed away when Sophia was five.

Her first goal is to raise $2,500, which is the cost of one higher-end canine bulletproof vest that also measures the dog’s biometrics. Once she meets that goal, she plans to present the money to Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco in person. And, her dad says, “Sophia asked me how many vests the Sheriff’s Office needs. I was told they need 11, so she really wants to raise enough money to buy 11 vests.”

According to the Pasco Sheriff’s K9 Association website, there are currently nine active K9 officers and Jason says he is aware of at least one more joining the Sheriff’s Office soon.

Sophia says she charges 50 cents for each cup of lemonade, but that she often receives much more, even $20, for one cup, once people know the cause they’re supporting with their purchase.

Although her first lemonade stand made just a small profit, she has received much more financial support from her Facebook page. Her dad says they have received donations from as far away as New Hampshire and Illinois, and donations to her campaign had totaled more than $1,000 as we went to press with this issue.

Closer to home, Sophia has gotten support from local businesses, including Jefferson Bank, which set up an account where anyone can walk into any branch (including the one in Tampa Palms at 15302 Amberly Dr.) and make a donation to “Sophia’s Pasco County Sheriff’s K9 Fund.” She also has been invited to set up a lemonade stand at Wesley Chapel Nissan (located at 28519 S.R. 54, which she did for the first time on January 9).

Troy Stevenson of Wesley Chapel Nissan, a member of the WCCC who was instrumental in bringing awareness of the issue to the group, has helped the dealership (which is owned by Jay Rosario) raise $10,000 to donate to PCSO to get the ball rolling for the K-9 vests. He also got permission for Sophia to sell lemonade at the dealership.

“Sophia is a dynamo,” says Troy. “I wish I had her selling cars for us. She could raise $10,000 herself before she’s done.”

Want to support Sophia’s efforts? Come out and buy lemonade at her next lemonade stand, which will be on Saturday, January 18, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. It will be held in conjunction with a free shredding event by local business Shred360 at the Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce office (6013 Wesley Grove Blvd., #105, in The Grove at Wesley Chapel plaza). Or, check out her Facebook page, where you’ll find a link to make a donation via PayPal. You can also make a donation at the Jefferson Bank branch in Tampa Palms.

Getting bigger and better, just like Wesley Chapel

Editorial by Gary Nager

Judging by all of the new “stuff” that’s still coming to Wesley Chapel (see page 14, current issue), it’s easy to understand why the longest continuously published (by the same owner) publication directly mailed to all of the single-family subdivisions (and many of the multi-family units in the same communities) in Wesley Chapel continues to break through barriers in terms of local advertising sales, readership, popularity and ability to help the local businesses who choose to advertise in these pages.

Although we have been directly mailed to Wesley Chapel since I purchased the Neighborhood News in February 1994, our separate (and separately-mailed) Wesley Chapel edition has not yet reached double digits in years. Even so, the reason I split it off from what used to be two issues per month mailed to both New Tampa and Wesley Chapel was because I saw how quickly the Wesley Chapel area was growing between 2005-08 and I was also the only local publisher regularly following — and providing updates in print and on-line about — everything that was still to come to Wesley Chapel, which once had a concrete barricade on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. separating Wesley Chapel from what is now called New Tampa at the Pasco County line.

Even so, I couldn’t in my wildest dreams imagine the kind of growth I’ve seen while doing the same job since Feb. 1994 — much less the last ten years — in U.S. Postal zip codes 33543, 33544 and 33545.

And yes, it’s still coming, which I know has many of us concerned about the traffic and other issues all the continuing growth will bring, but it certainly also has helped your direct-mail community news magazine continue to grow along with Pasco County’s fastest-growing community.

A case in point is this issue, which is the first time we’ve had to expand to 48 pages in the shorter history of our Wesley Chapel issue — which we both split off from New Tampa and switched both editions from their one-time quarter-folded newspaper style to their current oversized magazine format — back in 2008.

In a little less than eight years, the Wesley Chapel edition has grown from its original 28 pages back then to average more than 40 pages the last two years, including our previous high page count of 44, a barrier we had reached several times in both 2014 and 2015, but had never had quite enough advertising to warrant a 48-page issue.

That is, until this edition. But, everyone who works with us knows that no matter how many ads we sell, if we don’t continue to do the little things to help as many of you keep reading every page of every issue — and keep those advertisers as happy as we possibly can by continually improving and refining our finished product every two weeks (our next New Tampa issue will hit mailboxes in 33647 on Jan. 28-29) — it all can go away…in a hurry.

My 22-year commitment (as of next month) has been and continues to be to bring more news and information that’s pertinent to the lives of our readers in both of our markets to keep you reading, not just the “advertorials” that are still part of what we do, but certainly not the only or even the most important thing we do. Anyone can tell you about a local business, but we believe it takes the Neighborhood News to keep the people in both of our distribution areas informed about what’s happening in those areas — and maybe even entertained a little.

As always, I thank you again for the unique opportunity and privilege I have to serve our wonderful readers and advertisers.

‘Taste-y’ News Coming Soon?

I know I’ve teased this a few times before, but yes, there should soon be news about the return of what was once my favorite annual local event, the Taste of New Tampa! I can’t say any more right now, but I will be involved and I will be excited to provide more info…as soon as next issue!