Category: Featured

Wildcats Put Last Season In Rearview Mirror

When it comes to all of the 18 baseball teams coach Scott Hoffman has had at Wharton High, last year’s version had the potential to be one of the best.

The Wildcats started out 8-1, with every win but one by four runs or more, outscoring their opponents 73-19. It was a great start.

But then, Covid took hold, and the season, as well as the Wildcats’ hopes for a State championship, faded away.

“When you look back, we thought last year might have been our year,” Hoffman says.

However, thanks to this year’s team, the coach hasn’t had to do much lamenting. The Wildcats picked up right where they left off in 2020 and are 20-4 this season following a 6-2 win over Alonso to send them to the Class 7A, District 7 district championship game this Friday at 7 p.m. against Sickles.

The Wildcats, who win or lose in the 7A-7 final have already clinched a spot in the regional baseball playoffs, will see if they have a deep playoff run in them. They returned most of the starters from last year’s team, the pitching has been better than expected and three of their four losses — including a 6-5 loss to nationally-ranked Jesuit — have only been by a single run.

Hoffman says his squad still hasn’t put together the perfect game — although it does have two no-hitters — and thinks the 2021 Wildcats may be due. He has high hopes for this postseason.

“When we’re trying to think of the teams (we’ve had) that have gone on and done something in the postseason, I’d say we’re right about there (with them),” he says.

Pitching has been a major key. Junior starters Ryan Fry and Evan Chrest are a combined 13-2 with an ERA under 2.00, while senior Jackson Perkins is 5-0 with a 0.89 ERA.

Last month, Fry, a University of Miami commitment, threw what is believed to be the first seven-inning no-hitter in Wharton history, which also happened to be the second of back-to-back 15-strikeout games for the hard-throwing righty. Fry threw a complete game 3-hitter with nine strikeouts against Alonso in the district semifinal.

“Pitching has been the key,” says Hoffman, joking that every Wharton team he thinks will pitch well ends up hitting well, and vice versa. This year is no different, as he thought the hitting would be the team’s primary strength.

And, it hasn’t been bad. Hoffman said one hole to fill this year was developing a swing guy who could play multiple positions, and that turned out to be junior David Limbach, a backup catcher who showed more athleticism than Hoffman originally thought he had. In his utility role, Limbach has played in both the infield and outfield and is fourth on the team with a .343 batting average and tied for third-best with 20 RBI.

*Dylan McDonald leads the Wildcats in a handful of offensive categories and thinks this team could be a State championship contender.*

That puts him right behind Wharton’s formidable 1-2 punch at the top of the lineup — senior centerfielder and Saint Leo University signee Dylan McDonald and senior shortstop Zach Ehrhard, who is bound for Oklahoma State.

McDonald, who bats leadoff, leads the team with a .410 average, 10 doubles, three home runs, 33 hits and 22 RBI, while Ehrhard is hitting .440 with 12 doubles, three homers and a team-high 24 steals. Ehrhard has gotten hot at the right time the past two weeks, going 10-for-18 with two homers, three doubles and eight RBI.

“I feel like we are definitely a pretty good 1-2 combo,” McDonald says. “When I get on, I know the 2-3-4 guys tend to get me in. And, when we start out quick, we seem to do pretty well.”

In fact, the Wildcats are 15-1 when they score first, with the only loss coming to Jesuit.

The Wildcats also have flexed their muscles this season, with seven different players combining to blast a school record 17 home runs in 24 games.

In the previous five seasons combined, Wharton hit 16 homers in 111 games.

Although the Wildcats have hit well in spurts, Hoffman is still looking for that stretch of offensive consistency — they are averaging nearly nine runs a game during their current 5-game win streak — that will elevate the team to a true playoff contender. If that happens, last year could become even more of a distant memory.

“We had a really good team last year, but is this team better?,” asks McDonald. “I think we kind of flip-flop on that every day. We could have won State last year, can we win State this year? We have a lot of chemistry this year, so it’s possible. Either way, these have been two of the best years Wharton has ever had.”

baseball wharton high school

Plans Ongoing For The Median South Of BBD/54 Intersection

Residents were assured during a sparsely attended virtual public hearing hosted by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) in February that the plans to redesign and modify part of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. south of its intersection with S.R. 54 are ongoing.

Construction on the median project is expected to begin in early 2022.

The project centers around the northbound and southbound median just south of the actual intersection.

The median currently has an opening allowing motorists to cross from exits between the Sonny’s BBQ and Sun Trust Bank adjacent to the Publix-anchored Hollybrook Plaza to southbound BBD or straight across to the west, to the Village Market shopping center, and from the Village Market to northbound BBD or across eastbound to the Hollybrook Plaza.

The plan is basically to extend the median and eliminate any cutting across BBD from either side.

The medians along this stretch will be combined into one.

It is not an uncommon sight to see an accident at the northbound side in front of the Sonny’s BBQ or Taco Bell.

According to FDOT, the median project was initiated by an intersection study that showed 233 “crashes” had been reported in that area from 2011-15.

A Neighborhood News Reader Survey in 2017 voted the BBD/54 intersection as the second-worst in Wesley Chapel, behind the I-75 and S.R. 56 intersection (which will have a new Diverging Diamond Interchange by the end of 2021).

The plan to make the location safer centers around closing what is now a split median and constructing one long median from Eagleston Blvd. to the south all the way north to S.R. 54.

Under the current set up, the northbound far left turn lane, when filled during busy traffic hours, extends beyond the median opening and blocks those trying to cross BBD.

Now, with a single, longer median, that left turn lane will be extended to accommodate more vehicles, which will reduce congestion.

There also will be a new traffic signal installed at Eagleston, and new roadway lighting added to the northbound lanes, as well as some resurfacing.

At the southbound end of the new median where the light will be installed, a dedicated U-turn lane will be built for motorists wanting to get to Hollybrook Plaza (this also can be achieved by merely driving east through the BBD/54 intersection and entering via two entrance points off S.R. 54).

FDOT says it plans to let the project out to bid in October, with construction beginning a few months later.

Quail Hollow Residents Prepare For Another Fight

Lane Mendelsohn has had his eye on the more than 1,000 acres of land next to where his family lives in the Quail Hollow area for a few years now. Not because he wants to buy it, but because those who own it have plans he feels aren’t best for that area.

SoHo Capital, LLC, the developers of the proposed Dayflower Master Planned Unit Development (MPUD), may be prepping to ask the county for a rezoning that will increase how many homes it can build on the land from roughly 1,000 to almost 1,500. Mendelsohn is worried about overcrowding, flooding, damage to wetlands and roads buckling under an influx of new traffic, to name a few.

So, instead of sitting back and waiting to see what happens, Mendelsohn and a group of Quail Hollow residents are on a mission to stop a potential rezoning of the land before it even gets started.

Mendelsohn has spent a good deal of his own money founding the Quail Hollow Alliance (QHA), creating a website and forming a team of land and environmental experts. He has rallied the communities of Quail Hollow, Angus Valley and Lexington Oaks — and residents of those developments account for the many of the more than 2,000 signatures in opposition he has collected — in a proactive effort to save the area.

“I’m not an activist that goes around county looking for a fight,” Mendelsohn says. “I got involved because this affects me, my family and my community. We’ve got one shot to stop this proposed development on a very environmentally sensitive piece of property and once built on, that’s it, there’s no turning back. If someone didn’t step up with the time and financial resources, my feeling was we may blow it and have to live with the adverse effects. If I didn’t do this, I would never be able to forgive myself.”

SoHo Capital is likely to bring its plans to the Pasco County Planning Commission in the near future. It owns 1,007 acres north of Wesley Chapel Blvd. and west of Old Pasco Rd. The property touches three established communities, but mostly Quail Hollow and Angus Valley, communities which date back to the 1950s, where home lots are generally three quarters of an acre or larger.

Mendelsohn owns a 75-acre lot just north of the property, a six-acre plot and a 2-acre plot where he lives next to his parents’ 14-acre lot.

Mendelsohn says Soho Capital wants to fill the developable areas (probably 500 acres, due to how much of the property is wetlands) with 40-foot lots.

While he says he respects a land owner’s rights to do what is allowed under its zoning, he is opposed to rezoning to allow even more homes.

While SoHo is already permitted to build around 1,000 homes (2.2 homes per buildable acre due to its current Res-1 zoning), Mendelsohn says the developer is working towards a rezoning which would allow for 1,439 homes.

“My feeling is development has to be responsible, and has to be consistent and compatible with the surrounding areas,” Mendelsohn says.

Jennifer Seney, a Quail Hollow resident who researches most of the information that fills the group’s website, feels the same.

“I’ll even go a step further,” Seney says, “I’ll say that what is being proposed for this piece of land is completely inappropriate.”

The additional density from a rezoning, not what is currently allowed, is where the QHA finds the problem.

According to Mendelsohn, SoHo Capital estimates the development would add 13,309 additional day trips on three small country roads that run right through Quail Hollow and Angus Valley. Mendelsohn says those roads — Sandy Ln., Mangrove Dr. and Armenian Ln. — are already classified as substandard by the county for not being thick or wide enough, and there is no room to widen them without getting rid of the swales that help control the area’s persistent flooding.

Seney has particularly strong feelings about the roads, because she says SoHo Capital is requesting that the county allow it to pay “fair share” on the road improvements, which means splitting the costs with the county, rather than footing the bill themselves. She believes the county’s share would end up as an assessment on those living near and using the roads. In other words, the residents of Quail Hollow and Angus Valley.

“The road improvements are solely for the benefit of the developer,” Seney says. “We don’t need them (with the current population that uses them), and would never ask for them, but will have to pay for them.”

Seney, who worked for Pasco County as a recycling supervisor from 2008-18, fears the county may see this as an opportunity to bring the roads up to a higher level of service without having to pay for anything.

Following a March 1 required virtual public meeting with the developer, QHA members also claimed the project, which is adjacent to the Cypress Creek Preserve, would destroy “at least 11 acres of pristine wetlands, which help recharge Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater’s water supply through Pasco’s Cypress Creek Watershed.”

SoHo Capital, or SoHo Dayflower LLC, does not yet have any meetings scheduled yet before the planning commission, which would be the next step. Mendelsohn is hoping that such meetings won’t happen at all. The main goal of his group is to convince county staff that the project isn’t worth putting to any vote, due to the numerous questions — which Mendelsohn says have not been answered — put forth by the QHA.

“I don’t want this to get in front of the planning commission and then the county commissioners and have us have to fight this out in front of them,” Mendelsohn says. “If the Pasco County Planning department really takes a look at this, they would see that this project is not a good project for this area.”

District 2 County Commissioner Mike Moore says he has been contacted by the group, but until the project moves onto the planning commission agenda, he has little to say about it.

The QHA is not trying to stop SoHo from building any homes on the land it owns. Mendelsohn says he is not anti-development. And in fact, if developers were only trying to build the number of homes the property was currently zoned for, the QHA wouldn’t even exist.

However, if a rezoning does take place, he feels that more homes will equal more problems for long-time residents of Quail Hollow and Angus Valley.

“My main point is, building 40-foot lots is just not compatible in an area where the lots are bigger and there isn’t that kind of density,” Mendelsohn says. ““I do believe property owners have rights and I respect that, however my hope is that the county commissioners are listening to the people and just because a developer requests a rezoning, that is not something they are entitled to or that the commissioners are required to grant.”

For more information, check out QuailHollowAlliance.org

angus valley Lexington Oaks Quail Hollow

Coyotes Packing A Punch

Mandy Schwartz digs the long ball.

Through the first 15 games this season, the Cypress Creek High (CCH) junior third baseman has launched 10 pitches over the softball fences at various high schools, from Zephyrhills (twice) to Wiregrass Ranch to Berkeley Prep, where home run No. 10 in the sixth inning lifted the Coyotes to a 1-0 district win.

Her eighth home run, which came in the sixth inning against Class 5A, No. 3-ranked River Ridge, tied a game the Coyotes eventually lost 5-4, but it also set a school record for a season, breaking Neely Peterson’s previous mark of seven set in 2019.

Schwartz’s ninth homer, three days later, tied her for the state lead with two other players.

Her 10th, April 8 against the Bucs, is merely putting the record further out of reach for the coming classes of Coyote softball players — and there’s still three games to play.

She’s not just a player who can crush a lot. In fact, Schwartz doesn’t see herself as a home run hitter, just someone who hits the ball hard.

“I definitely think I am a power hitter, but not necessarily a home run hitter,” she says.

Schwartz combines her power with contact, and is hitting .608 with only three strikeouts in 48 plate appearances this season. It is one of the primary reasons the Coyotes got off to a surprising 12-3 start in 2021, including 6-0 in the District.

And, there have been other bright spots. Senior centerfielder Emma Coons is hitting over .300 with 12 stolen bases, junior Jillian Hudson is batting .382 with a team-high five doubles, and senior Hailey Vazquez has given Cypress Creek a legitimate ace in the circle for the first time in its four years of existence.

Vazquez boasts a 0.74 ERA, and has struck out 112 batters in 66 innings while posting a 9-2 record.

“I can’t ask more of Hailey,” says first-year Coyotes’ head coach Jennelle Day. “She’s a great leader on and off the field and has a confidence the girls follow. She’s done a lot of big things for us.”

Schwartz has been a starter since her freshman year, when she batted .467 with three homers, eight doubles and 25 RBI. That team won a District title, a Regional playoff game and came within a run of making it to the Regional championship game.

She credits her offensive numbers to Tommy Santiago, who was her private hitting coach before rejoining the staff of the University of South Florida softball team last year. Santiago changed Schwartz’s swing a few years back, and after struggling a few months to get the mechanics just right, she has been on a tear.

Last season, she didn’t get a chance to follow up her impressive freshman season due to Covid-19, which cut the season short (but not before she was able to hit a home run in the Coyotes’ season opener against Mitchell).

Schwartz was unsure what to expect in 2021, and has been a little surprised by CCH’s hot start.

“Honestly, I really didn’t expect this because we lost a majority of our players (the past two seasons),” Schwartz says. “We currently have eight freshmen on our roster, so I thought it might be a little rocky. But, everything just clicked early on.”

Even with Schwartz’s big bat and Vazquez’s stalwart arm filling two important areas, the CCH defense may deserve just as much credit for the team’s success. Through 15 games, the Coyotes had committed just nine errors.

“The bats can be shaky, but the defense has really stepped up,” Schwartz says.

As a result, she thinks this year’s version of the Coyotes can match what the 2019 team did, and maybe even advance in the State playoffs.

“I think as long as we stay focused we can definitely do that again,” Schwartz says.

cypress creek softball

Garden Mediterranean Grill — So Close & So Authentic!

Even though there are quite a few Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurants located in New Tampa, based on what I’ve already tasted and heard from customers, it’s still well worth a few-minute drive to the Eagle Plaza on Oak Grove Blvd. at S.R. 54 in Lutz to try the new Garden Mediterranean Grill.

Owners Raja Saad and her husband, Chef Hedi Jlassi (top photo) are both from the Arabic North African nation of Tunisia and they offer a huge variety of delicious Mediterranean-influenced food in a beautiful, but casual setting.

The restaurant now called Garden Mediterranean Grill has had a number of previous tenants, including a Latin restaurant and a number of coffee shops, but Raja and Hedi and their family believe that they have brought the right cuisine and the right price to the location — and yes, the food is delicious!

Whether you dine as a couple of bring a large family or group of friends to the Garden, you’re sure to find plenty of options, as well as huge portions.

To start, try the Foule (pronounced “fool”; center photo, far right), a delicious dish of puréed fava beans, garlic, lemon and topped with virgin olive oil. It’s served with the fluffiest pita bread I’ve had anywhere. To really get into the variety of starters, however, Raja and Hedi recommend the appetizer platter, which includes hummus, baba Ghanouj (mashed, cooked eggplant), labneh (strained yogurt), falafel (fried, ground chick peas) and grape leaves. Other starters include fried calamari, Nabulsi fried cheese, tabouli (chopped parsley, diced tomatoes, onions, dry mint, lemon juice and olive oil), shakshouka merguez (sautée of Merguez sausage and eggs cooked with tomatoes, onion, garlic and spices and even shrimp scampi.

So far, the only salad I’ve sampled is the tangy house salad (diced tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, parsley, herbs, olive oil and lemon juice), but there also is a great-looking Greek salad, fattoush, tahini and Caesar salads. You also can top your salad with a variety of meats and seafood, including chicken kabobs (so good) or shawarma, beef or lamb shish kabobs, kufta (ground lamb) kabobs, delicious, fresh-cut gyro meat, salmon or shrimp.

I haven’t sampled any of the sandwiches yet, but I have had several of the meats available as sandwiches as entrée platters. The sandwich that looked the most interesting to me was the chicken shawarma quesadilla, which is a nice Middle Eastern take on the popular Mexican dish which combines sliced chicken shawarma meat and a delicious garlic sauce with cheese, onions and tomatoes stuffed inside a soft tortilla. There’s also fish, shrimp and falafel wraps on the menu.

The perfectly-season meat entrée platters all include long-grain yellow rice and amazing grilled veggies (onions and red and green peppers; Jannah and I order them well-cooked). Among my favorite entrées so far are the gyro, beef shawarma and chicken kabob platters, but my can’t-miss option so far is the lamb chop platter. You get four tender, delicious rib chops that are grilled to perfection.

Other entrée options include Turkish kabobs (ground lamb and beef, but Raja says they are different from kufta kabobs), Merguez sausage, lamb shanks and chicken tekka, which is a marinated half-chicken char-grilled in what appears to be an Indian-influenced blend of spices. I didn’t taste it but photographer Charmaine George said it was outstanding.

Although I can’t eat shrimp and personally don’t love salmon or tilapia, the seafood entrées include shrimp kabobs, salmon, fish and mixed seafood platters, as well as the char-broiled whole fish of the day, usually red snapper or bronzino. There are also are large meat-lovers’ platters (with shish, kufta and chicken kabobs, gyro and beef and chicken shawarma) and royal meat-lovers’ platters (add lamb chops, shrimp and salmon), both in sizes to serve 2-3 and 4-6 people, although all of them honestly look like they could serve even more people to me.

Desserts & Beverages!

Like most Mediterranean restaurants, Garden Mediterranean Grill offers dessert favorites like baklava, warbat (filo dough stuffed with cream) and a variety of cakes, but my favorite so far are the almond baklava fingers shown and the salted caramel cheesecake. I’ve yet to try the baklava with ice cream, but it’s definitely on my list. As for beverages, try the Turkish coffee, the Moroccan mint green tea and the fresh mint lemonade.

Left to right: Mint lemonade, salted caramel cake and hot tea being poured.

Garden Mediterranean Grill is located at 1900 Oak Grove Blvd., Lutz (zip code 33559) and is open Mon.-Thur., 10 a.m.-10 p.m., 10 a.m.-11 p.m. on Fri., 9 a.m.-11 p.m. on Sat. and 9 a.m.-10 p.m. on Sun. For more information, call (813) 528-8088 or see the ad on pg. 39 of our latest issues for a Grand Opening Special 15%-off coupon.

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