Austin Named Top All-Star Lineman But West Falls To East In OT

Most Outstanding Defensive Lineman Christian Austin rushes the quarterback in the second annual Pasco County East-West All-Star game, which was played on Dec. 8.

Wesley Chapel High (WCH) defensive lineman Christian Austin wreaked havoc on the West team’s offensive line to earn Most Outstanding Defensive Lineman, but it wasn’t enough to lift his fellow All-Stars to victory Dec. 8 in the second annual Pasco County East-West Classic, which was played at Sunlake High in Land O’Lakes.

The East team, with Austin and 13 other players from WCH and Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) on the roster, fell to the West 27-21 on a quarterback scramble in overtime.

WRH and WCH had seven players each named to the team, which is comprised of only seniors. The event was sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel.

“This is a great thing, what we’re doing here,” said WRH head coach Mark Kantor, who was the head coach of the East team. “We should keep it rolling. It’s fun to coach the kids (from other schools) and just to be part of this.”

Wesley Chapel-area players showed up early and heavily on defense for the East squad. WRH’s 6-foot, 180-pound linebacker Ryan Scamardo made a touchdown-saving tackle and had a quarterback pressure on the West’s opening drive, but the West still found the end zone on a third-and-goal for the game’s first score.

A fumble recovery then set up a short field for WCH quarterback Jacob Thomas and the East offense. Thomas completed a first down pass to the 13, and then Zephyrhills Christian’s Mykh’ael Chavis ran it in from there to tie the game.

Austin, who is undersized for an interior player at 5’-10’ and 190 lbs., but able to use his edge in quickness to make plays, was a menace from his defensive line position. He beat behemoth 6-8, 350-pound lineman Darrin Bright of Ridgewood for a tackle-for-loss on the West’s fourth drive, forcing a punt.

On the next West drive, they tried a halfback option play, and Scamardo was there to break it up for a loss of yardage and force a fourth down.

Scamardo’s WRH teammate and fellow LB Jason Winston, tripped up the West quarterback on the ensuing drive to force another fourth down. Another Bulls player, safety Dylan Bryan, made a huge play on the next drive, intercepting the ball and returning it to the West 36.

In the third quarter, the West took a 13-7 lead but local defenders kept making plays, as Winston and Bryan combined to force another West fourth down.

The offensive players from WCH and WRH began making their marks, as well. On first-and-goal from the 5, Thomas ran a bootleg to his left and beat the West defense to the corner for a touchdown to give his squad a 14-13 lead.

And then, Austin logged another sack on the West’s ensuing possession.

With time winding down, the East got in the end zone again to take a 21-13 lead with 1:12 left to play, but the West charged right back with a touchdown and two-point conversion with 18 seconds left to send the game into overtime.

But, even though the West team fell short, WCH coach Tony Egan, who served as an assistant for the East squad, said, “This was an awesome experience, mixing it up with other coaches, no one wanting to give up any secrets, keeping it very vanilla. It’s also another chance for some of these players to get something on film.”

Egan mentioned that Thomas had finally received his first of what Egan expects to be multiple scholarship offers, from Ave Maria University near Naples, FL.

Samhouri Heads To State Cross Country Meet

The Wharton Wildcats put together the best cross country team in the Tampa Bay area in 2015. The Wildcats took third place at the Class 3A State championships behind then-sophomore Alisha Deschenes, who finished 21st overall.

The team’s next best finisher was junior Rania Samhouri, who was 30th.

With such key runners expected to return, the future of Wharton cross country looked good for 2016.

But, head coach Anthony Triana did not know at the time that only one of his top state finishers would ever run again for the Wildcats. The one that has, however, has seamlessly stepped into her role as the team’s No. 1 runner.

Samhouri, who was the team’s No. 5 just two seasons ago, is headed to the State meet as an individual after finishing fifth at the Class 4A, Region 2 meet on Oct. 28, finishing the difficult 5K (3.1-mile) course at Holloway Park in Lakeland in 19 minutes, 13.82 seconds, 34 seconds slower than her personal best.

The 2016 Florida High School Athletic Association’s State championships will be run tomorrow at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, and Florida State University is the host. Samhouri will begin her quest to top last year’s finish at 9:40 a.m.

The Wharton girls team did not qualify for a return to state, finishing eighth in the Region. Only the top six teams and top 15 individual finishers qualify for state.

Deschenes, a soccer player first who stars for both the Wharton side and one of the top club teams in the state, decided that her junior year, the most important from a recruiting standpoint, was too important for her not to focus on soccer.

After trying to balance it all over the summer, the grueling club schedule just presented too much of a conflict and Deschenes stepped away from the cross country team.

The good news, however, is that Samhouri was ready for the challenge. “When you lose your number one, you have to have a backup plan,” Triana said. “But, even before Alisha left, Rania was already starting to step up to that number one spot.”

As a sophomore, Samhouri made dramatic improvement all season long.

She was the team’s number five runner, with a top time of 20:58 early in the season, but by the Pre-State meet at FSU towards the end of the season, she was well under 20 minutes, posting a 19:44.

This season, she already has run 18:40 at the North Port Invitational. That ranks her in the top-10 in her classification heading into States.

Samhouri had a great rabbit to chase this season in defending State champ and State meet record holder Bailey Hertenstein of Riverview.

It was chasing Hertenstein, Tampa Bay’s best cross country runner, that helped push Samhouri to the 18:40 she ran at North Port, and chasing Hertenstein again at the Hillsborough County Championships helped Samhouri run her second-best time of the season, covering the 3.1-mile course in 18:48.

“When there’s someone in front of you, you can’t help but try and close the gap,” Samhouri said.

Gaps have been just what Samhouri has been closing all season.

She broke through for the Class 4A, District 6 title on her way to qualifying for state. At Al Lopez Park in Tampa, she broke from the start line and raced to the front, and despite some competition midway through by a pair of Steinbrenner runners, she managed to pull away and finish first by nine seconds.

If you ask Samhouri about her individual accomplishments, she’ll deftly defer you to what her team has accomplished, which included a third-place finish at Districts.

“At the end of the day, it’s about what can I do to make the team better?,” Samhouri said.

Proof, perhaps, that Samhouri has grown as both a runner, and a leader.

“She wants that leadership role, we have trust and a confidence level with each other,” Triana said. “She knows and speaks to every girl on the team, she supports (not only) the varsity girls, but the kids on JV, too.”

‘Changing Chapel’ With One Big Football Victory At A Time

wesley-chapel-football
left to right, DB Isaiah Bolden, QB Jacob Thomas and RB Dexter Leverette.

Anthony Egan knew his first head coaching job wouldn’t be easy.

He was inheriting a Wesley Chapel High (WCH) team that had gone 7-33 the previous four seasons. Five of those seven wins were against teams that were either 0-10 or 1-9.

In 2013, the Wildcats only scored 68 points all season en route to a winless campaign.

“Change Chapel?”

Yes, please.

“When I first came to Wesley Chapel, I heard guys like (senior running back) Ellrie Allen and some of the seniors saying, ‘Changing Chapel,’” Egan says. “We cut the ‘ing’ off and made it our own.”

The “Change Chapel” mantra is paying dividends, as the Wildcats head into the toughest stretch of the season, starting with tonight’s home Class 5A, District 8 game against Anclote. 

The Wildcat players have clearly bought into shedding their image as a losing football team. In fact, Wesley Chapel is now 6-0, the Wildcats’ best start since posting back-to-back 10-0 regular seasons way back in 2001-02. The Wildcats are 4-0 in 5A-8, tied for first with upcoming opponents Zephyrhills (Oct. 21) and River Ridge (Oct. 28).

Wesley Chapel won its first two 2016 games against two teams with the deepest tradition of playoff football in Pasco County, knocking off Land O’Lakes 13-3 in the season opener on Aug. 26 and following that up with a 34-21 win over Pasco on Sept. 9. It was the first time since 2007 WCH had beaten the Pirates.

The Wildcats were just warming up. In its next three games, it outscored opponents 137-28, beating Ridgewood (42-22), Gulf (50-0) and Fivay (45-6). Last week, the Wildcats rallied from a 28-20 fourth quarter deficit to beat Hudson 39-34.

“Week one, we had about 90 percent buy in” Egan says. “Now we’re at 100 percent,” Egan said.

New Coach, New Attitude

It started with Egan. He had two coaching runs, at River Ridge High as well as a short stint at Hudson. He’s a 2003 River Ridge graduate. Last season, when Egan was still at River Ridge, the Royal Knights devoured the Wildcats in the first half, 35-0.

“We were up big but Wesley Chapel came out in the second half and outscored us 21-7,” Egan says. “I saw a lot of athletes, a lot of guys moving around fast and I knew this was a place I wanted to go.”

Tony Egan talks to his team at a recent practice.
Tony Egan talks to his team at a recent practice.

Egan was set on finding a head coaching job somewhere after serving as a defensive coordinator and line coach for several years. It wound up that the only place he applied was Wesley Chapel; he was hired in January.

“What I saw right away was a good group of respectful kids ready to work,” Egan says. “We had 40-50 kids in the weight room, 40-50 all through the summer.”

In the spring game, Wesley Chapel thumped Weeki Wachee 54-20, showing off the steady running game that was the hallmark of the Knights’ attack the past few seasons. The Wildcats seemed to be on their way.

“As soon as Coach Egan came in, you could feel it in the air — there was that hunger,” senior quarterback Jacob Thomas said. “This was not going to be the same Chapel. We weren’t going to do what we’d been doing for years and years.”

A Perfect Mix…

A few new players have been contributing to the Wesley Chapel turnaround, including highly-regarded junior defensive back Isaiah Bolden, a Florida State verbal commitment and 4-star recruit, according to the Rivals.com.

Though he transferred in from Jacksonville-area Bartram Trail (to be with his father), Bolden is not new to Wesley Chapel — he went to Thomas E. Weightman Middle School and played football for the Weightman Wildcats. He had moved to the Jacksonville/St. Johns area for high school to be with his mother, where he developed into a top recruit.

“It was different, real different when I came back from Bartram Trail,” Bolden says. “I just wanted to see where I’d fit in.”

He has fit in just fine. Last season, Bolden had a 108-yard interception return for a touchdown for the Bears, and those skills were in full effect against Pasco, when Bolden ran a kickoff back 95 yards for a TD.

First-year running back Dexter Leverett is another transfer having a big impact. Leverett played for Eastside High in Taylors, SC, as a freshman but spent a whole year on the sidelines, waiting for his chance. After transferring to Wesley Chapel for 2015, he was on the team but ineligible to play.

He now leads Pasco County in rushing, with 906 yards (7.6 yards a carry) and six touchdowns. Leverett’s 906 yards is more than the Wildcat team rushed for the entire season in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Teammate Malik Melvin is tied with Leverette for the team lead with six rushing touchdowns, while contributing 297 yards.

Thomas, the senior leader at QB, continues to excel, even if he isn’t throwing the ball as much as he is used to.

Last year, Thomas threw an average of 33 times a game for a county-best 1,825 yards and 17 touchdowns as a junior for the Wildcats, but he has sacrificed his prolific numbers, throwing only seven times a game this season, for the sake of the team.

The 6-foot-4, 180-pounder has completed 17 of 42 pass attempts, but almost half his completions — eight, to be exact — have gone for touchdowns, including three to junior WR Justin Trapnell and two to freshman RB Keith Walker.

“If I don’t buy in (to Egan’s gameplan), then who does?” Thomas said after the win over Pasco. “We are going to run his style (of offense), I knew how it would be but he makes the calls and we execute them.”

“Jacob’s been great, he’s been patient,” Egan says. “He’s a big kid that’s still waiting on that first (college) offer. He can really hit receivers when they’re open and that’s what the running game (sets up). He is such a good leader, he could hand off 60 times and pass two. It’s all about winning. He’s worried about the team and winning.”

That’s what it is all about at Chapel these days.

Change, indeed.

Trip To Ireland Spurring Olympic Dreams For Wharton Junior

yasmine_gillespieWatching the 2016 Summer Olympics was a real treat for 15-year-old Paul R. Wharton High junior Yasmine Gillespie. It provided a nice respite from the young athlete’s busy schedule, as she got to see martial artists from all over the world compete for gold in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

What the second-degree black belt did not know was that during the Olympics, several new sports were given a chance to be included in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and making the cut was karate, both kata (one-person forms) and kumite (two-person grappling/sparring).

The former infused instant dreams into the mind of Yasmine, who over the summer found out she would be representing Team USA at the World Karate & Kickboxing Commission (WKC) World Championships in Dublin, Ireland.

In June, she attended the WKC national tournament in Dearborn, Michigan on the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus.

“The way it works is they call you up, you do your form, they score you, then you go again and it repeats until you eventually get a compiled score,” Yasmine says. “When they called the top four qualifiers up, I didn’t realize that was what it was for, I thought they just called me up to perform again.”

Instead, one of the other girls leaned over to her and said, “You’re coming with us to Dublin. Welcome to the team.”

“I was so shocked,” Yasmine said. “I got the medals and took pictures and I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God. I’m on Team USA. That’s real.’”

From October 30 through November 4, Gillespie will be representing Team USA at the WKC World Championships, where more than two dozen countries will be participating.

yasmine_gillespie_2Yasmine says she has always wanted to be an Olympic athlete, and she is headed in that direction.

But before 2020 rolls around, she has other goals. She was advanced a grade level when she started public school, and plans to finish in the top 10 of her graduating class academically. She plays Libero on Wharton’s varsity volleyball team, and also is a varsity tennis player.

How does she manage all of this?

“I’m really good with time management,” Yasmine says. “I find time to work on homework after lunch and in that hour between volleyball practice and karate class. It’s hard to fit it in but I make sure and find time; I plan ahead.”

That careful planning and management has helped Yasmine succeed not only academically, but also in her athletic pursuits.

She trains under fourth-degree karate black belt, Master John Augello at Core Martial Arts in New Tampa. While Yasmine cracks the pads and rolls around on the mat with the other students in the adult class, her specialty is one-person forms, called “katas” in Japanese or Okinawan martial arts disciplines.

A form or kata is a series of movement combinations fused together to simulate combat against an imaginary opponent or opponents. Oftentimes, an intense energy/vocal expression called a “kia” is used to punctuate some of the techniques.

“She just has this natural flow,” Augello says, “and you can’t teach that.”

Yasmine competes in both regular kata and classical kata. She started training in martial arts when she was three years old, and advanced quickly, especially in her teenage years. She now competes in the adult class.

“She was just too big and strong for the little guys,” Augello says. “We had to set the bar higher for her.”

Yasmine keeps jumping over that bar.

In July, she earned her second black belt, and also competed in the U.S. Open Karate World Championships in Orlando and won the International Championship in regular kata in the 15-16 age group.

Her brother Sammy, who is 11, also competes and will join her in Dublin.

“My wife and I wanted to get our kids into karate at an early age,” Yasmine’s father Brian said. “And, not just for self defense but also for confidence and having experience getting out and performing at a young age.”

NTP’s ‘Beauty & The Beast’ To Be A Local Acting Family Affair!

Shoemaker familyOn Friday, July 29, 8 p.m. (and running through Sunday, August 7), the curtains at the University Area Community Development Center (UACDC) on N. 22nd Street in Tampa will part for the New Tampa Players (NTP)’s production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

Backstage, an entire family will run their lines through their heads, clear their throats and take deep breaths to calm their pre-show jitters. That family is not just the troupe of actors joined together for the show. Rather, it’s literally a biological family of five. It’s also not their first time performing together.

Husband and wife Adam Shoemaker and Amy Rothman first met at a singing group at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Now, 20 years, two professional careers and three children later, Shoemaker and Rothman are still fulfilling their passions, which have been extended to their children.

“We have a family conference before any show we do,” Rothman said. “No one is forced into it and we’re clear that it takes up the whole summer.”

What began as a summer vacation idea has blossomed into a summer family tradition. And, the children aren’t just along for the ride, they’re all active participants. Claire is 11 years old, Gail is 8 and James is 6, and they already have a litany of shows longer than actors twice their age to their credit, adding to the vast wall of show bills in the Shoemaker home.

Claire recently graduated from Hunter’s Green Elementary and is planning to attend performing arts magnet school Orange Grove in East Tampa. She plays Chip in “Beauty and the Beast” the teacup son of Mrs. Potts, both cursed by the Enchantress and changed from their human forms into a teacup and teapot, respectively. Both Gail and James are in the ensemble and have both have choreography, lines and songs to memorize.

“A lot of people from the last show (“Mary Poppins,” which ran last August) are in this one and it’s fun to meet new people,” Gail says. “I also like how much people enjoy the shows. They say they like how they thought the show would be something more childlike and they’re surprised by how good it is.”

Sounds like lots of fun for parents who either work from home or don’t have full-time jobs. How else could they do this, right? Not so fast.

NTP WEB3Shoemaker and Rothman are both working professionals. Rothman is a Doctor of Medical Dentistry (DMD) who was previously in private practice and now is a dentist and clinical instructor for dental assistants at Erwin Technical College on Hillsborough Ave. Shoemaker is an industrial/organizational psychology professor at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo. Yet, somehow, they find a way to pull it off.

Getting each family member involved was a key factor.

“At first they kids would just sit in the audience and wait for us, but it went to a whole new level when they started coming up on stage with us,” Rothman says.

That’s when some of the kids’ talents began to emerge.

“During ‘Mary Poppins,’ James was not even in the show but he would be backstage during rehearsals and he would learn the numbers and perform them,” Rothman says. “I never even knew it until another cast member videotaped it and showed me.”

Gail, who was seven during the run of “Mary Poppins,” was there to remind Rothman of some of the dance moves.

“The kids are better than the adults sometimes about memorizing numbers,” Shoemaker says. “I don’t know if it’s because their brains are still growing, but it’s cool to be able to see them doing these dancing scenes.”

Claire was bitten by the performing bug even earlier, and already has several credits to her name, including her first role as an orphan in NTP’s production of “Annie” in 2011.

“A lot of people and families say they would love to do something like this but they think it’s hard to get into,” Shoemaker says. “It’s community theatre, it’s laid back. The Tampa Bay area has dozens of community theatre (troupes) where average Joes can get involved.”

NTP WEBThe Players currently operate out of the gymnasium in the University Community Development Center in the USF area between Bearss and Fletcher Aves. The facility is nothing to scoff at. The gym can be divided, making for a cozier auditorium and there’s also a catwalk filled with lights, a public address system, ample wings offstage and a scene shop that opens onto a loading dock.

A small army of volunteers make it go, and they produce three musicals a year. As hospitable as the UACDC is, the players long for a performance space actually in New Tampa. The Shoemakers live in Hunter’s Green, and plans for a theatre and cultural center across Bruce B. Downs Blvd. from the main entrance to their community are an exciting prospect for the family and for NTP.

“This community center has been great to us but it’s sometimes hard to get stage space,” Shoemaker said. “We want a space in New Tampa like the Carrollwood Cultural Center. We only run three shows per year here, but the Carrollwood Cultural Center is never dark.”

The development, tentatively called The Village at Hunter’s Lake, is a 17.6 acre parcel of land that’s sale has already been approved by the Hillsborough County Commission. However, because the property lies within Tampa city limits, there are zoning ordinances that have yet to be worked out.

New Tampa-area performers are excited about the 20,000-sq.-ft. cultural center and 300-seat auditorium, but for now, they are content with doing their best at the UACDC where many of the players also volunteer for charity work.

From their first production together (in the musical “1776”) as college sweethearts, to participating in Purim plays at their temple (Congregation Beth Am in Carrollwood), to standing onstage July 29 — Shoemaker as the Beast and Rothman as Madame de le Grande Bouche (the opera star turned wardrobe) — the acting bug has taken them on a fulfilling journey. It hardly gets any better, though, when the couple can look across the stage and see their own children in costume and makeup, taming the butterflies in their own stomachs.

They will be able to look at each other and say, “It’s going to be a great summer.”

Performances of the “Beauty & The Beast” will be held Fri., Jul. 29 & Aug. 5, 8 p.m.; Sat, Jul. 30 & Aug. 6, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; & Sun., July 31 & Aug. 7, 2 p.m.; at 14013 N. 22nd St.  For tickets & info, visit NewTampaPlayers.org.