The grand opening of the Wesley Chapel District Park Recreation Complex, originally scheduled for tomorrow morning, have been postponed. The ribbon cutting ceremony today, and tomorrow’s Grand Opening celebration, will be rescheduled for a later date.
Pasco County Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources will announce the new dates for these events as soon as plans are finalized. We’ll keep you posted.
CYPRESS CREEK
COACH: Mike Johnson
LAST YEAR: 3-7, lost to Tampa Catholic 55-7 in the first round of Class 4A playoffs.
KEY RETURNEES: Owen Walls (Sr., QB, 1,233 yards, 13 TDs in 2020), Andrew Burgess II (Sr., RB, 119 yards, 1 TD), Dontrell Clerkley (Sr., WR, 427 yards, 6 TDs), Merrick Simmons (Sr., WR, 331 yards, 6 TDs), Dernere Jones (Sr., WR, 166 yards), Colton Corrao (Sr., PK), James Cleary (Sr., OL/DL), Austin Slusher (So., OL/DL), Vincent Tre (Jr., LB).
TONIGHT: The Coyotes host Bonita Springs at 7:30 p.m.
REST OF THE SCHEDULE: The two toughest, and most important games (because they are 5A-District 9 games) will be at home, against Nature Coast Tech (Sept. 17) and Zephyrhills (Oct. 15).
GAME TO WATCH: Cypress Creek and nearby Wesley Chapel have only played once, in 2019, with the Wildcats posting a 19-0 win. On Oct. 29, they play again, and this time it’s a district game and could have some meaning. Time to rev up this rivalry!
THE SKINNY: With a young and unproven offensive line and loads of talent at quarterback and receiver, we might see a version of Air Johnson this year. The Coyotes put up a 45-0 win over Bishop McLaughlin in last week’s preseason game, not a bad way to kick it off. Clerkley and Walls should click, and Simmons and Burgess II are versatile athletes. Clerkley, also a standout at defensive back, caught TD passes in five of the last six games in 2020. Johnson said in the spring he was expecting freshman WR Jaelen Collins to add to the firepower. Defensively, transfer middle linebacker Niko Huitz was a standout in the spring and could play a big role in 2021. Cypress Creek has one of the top kickers around, senior Colton Corrao, who was ranked No. 13 in the country by Kornblue Kicking, a recruiting company that holds camps, trains and ranks kickers.
COACH: Tony Egan
LAST YEAR: 5-5, lost to Chamberlain 40-0 in first round of Class 5A playoffs.
KEY RETURNEES: Ethan Harper (Sr., QB, 699 yards, 7 TDs in 2020), Nehemiah Morgan (Sr., WR/S, 399 yards, 3 TDs), Jaylan Blake (Sr., RB, 485 yards, 4 TDs), Max Hembrecht (Jr., OL/DL), Ryan Warren (Jr., OL/DL), Briac Riles (Sr., OL/DL), Josh Poleon (Jr., LB), Ayden Roysdon (Jr., LB), Yael Diaz (So., LB).
TONIGHT: at Sunlake at 7:30 p.m.
REST OF THE SCHEDULE: The Wildcats probably have the second toughest schedule in the county, behind Wiregrass Ranch. It will be tough to catch up if they come out of the gates slowly.
GAME TO WATCH: The Nature Coast Tech game on Oct. 1 may be the most important, but the Sept. 3 game against Wiregrass Ranch might be the most fun. The neighborhood rivals skipped last year’s game, so this should draw a boisterous crowd.
THE SKINNY: Rain washed out a ton of practice time for the Wildcats, and the 27-0 preseason loss to The Villages is not a promising sign. But the Wildcats have some nice pieces on offense, including the biggest offensive line Egan has had in his five seasons at the school. If Harper converts some of the promise he showed last year, and Morgan breaks out, the Wildcats should put up some points. Defensively, Wesley Chapel has excellent linebackers in Poleon and Roysdon, and the addition of Tampa Bay Tech transfer Jorden McCaslin will elevate that group. There have been some injuries, however, that could hamper the team’s depth.
The Wildcats have gone 5-5 the past three seasons, and Egan is tired of .500 and is setting the bar higher.
“I’m expecting to compete for a district title,” he says. “We have to get in the playoffs. It would be nice to win the first playoff game here.”
COACH: Mark Kantor
LAST YEAR: 4-5, had to forfeit playoff game due to Covid-19.
KEY RETURNEES: Rocco Becht (Sr., QB, 1,550 yards, 18 TDs in 2020), Corneil McCrary (Sr., RB, 453 yards, 3 TDs), Jr. Kenneth Walker (527 yards, 6 TDs), Bryson Rodgers (Jr., WR, 47 catches, 710 yards, 10 TDs), Izaiah Williams (So., WR), Abram Beer (Sr., LB/SS), Nate Kidd (Sr., LB), Logan Ridolph (Sr., OL/DL), Christian Loaiza (OL/DL).
TONIGHT: The season opener against Hernando has been postponed with the hopes of rescheduling.
THE REST OF THE SCHEDULE: Yikes! The Bulls play two teams that advanced to the state semifinals last year (Mitchell and Tampa Bay Tech), another team that has won multiple state championships (Armwood) and three other teams that finished 9-3, 7-2 and 6-1 (Zephyrhills, Wharton and The Villages, respectively). Did we say yikes already?
THE SKINNY: The offense is loaded, with Iowa State commit Becht throwing to Rodgers (a certain 5-Star recruit who already has Alabama, Florida, Florida State and Georgia among many suitors) or Williams or newcomer Malachi McLaughlin. All good choices. Walker and McCrary are 1,000-yard threats in the backfield, and tackles Loaiza and Ridolph bookend a very promising offensive line. The Bulls scored at least 41 points in every win last year. Wiregrass Ranch should score points this season, but the Bulls were shut out last week by Clearwater Central Catholic. More disconcerting was the score — 37-0. The defense has some questions that need to be answered after a bumpy 2020 and a spring game where it allowed 36 points to Berkeley Prep. Linebackers Kidd and Beer will try to shore up a unit that is shallow upfront, but can place talented athletes in the defensive backfield. If the defense can take the next step, big things could await the Bulls.
Friday, August 27, is the season opener for the Wharton and Freedom football teams, who will open the season against each other.
As if Freedom (1-9 last year) didn’t have enough of an uphill climb against the Wildcats, who won this meeting 50-0 last year, the Patriots also will have to deal with what could be a raucous opponent and fired up crowd as the school also debuts its new artificial turf field, which was installed over the summer, for a regular season game.
Wharton will have more offensive weapons this season so expect more scoring, but the Wildcats defense alone may be worth the price of admission.
The group allowed only 10 points a game last season, and could make a claim as one of Tampa Bay’s best.
Almost every defensive player is back, and the linebackers are outstanding. Senior Daveon Crouch has orally committed to Boston College, senior Henry Griffith led the team with 82 tackles, including nine for a loss, in 2020, and sophomore Booker Pickett, Jr., (pictured) was named a second-team MaxPreps Freshman All-American.
Senior CB Jairon Dorsey led the ‘Cats with five interceptions last season, while junior cornerback Dijon Johnson recently picked up college offers from Boston College, Ole Miss and Florida, and the defensive line is solid.
They say defense wins championships, but Wharton has a few obstacles to overcome if they are going to prove that true, namely, one of the toughest schedules the team has ever faced.
The new District 7A-10 includes perennial powerhouses Armwood and Tampa Bay Tech, plus Wiregrass Ranch, and the non-district schedule includes former State champs Jesuit, Jefferson and Plant.
GOLDEN GIRLS?: If Wharton football isn’t New Tampa’s best fall sports team, then it may be the Freedom girls swim team.
Led by Division 1 signees Michelle Morgan (Univ. of North Carolina) and Carly Joerin (Dartmouth College), the Patriots return just about everyone from the squad that finished seventh at the Class 3A meet last season.
“We were second in the District, second in the Region and seventh at State,” says second-year coach John Olewski. “We expect even better things this year.”
Morgan was the State champ in the 200-yard individual medley and added a silver in the 500-yard free while anchoring the 400-yard freestyle relay that won bronze.
Joerin also swam on that relay, as well as the 200- and 500-yard freestyles. Alexa Valdez-Velez also swam on the brone-medal-winning relay team, and is a key returner.
Olewski says he has 27 swimmers, and every event is covered and then some this season. “We’re definitely looking forward to it,” he says.
SPEED RACER: Brooke Reif has her sights set on breaking Wharton’s cross country record of 18 minutes, 34 seconds in the first meet this season, then getting her times under 18 minutes, and then leading the Wildcats back to the Class 4A state meet as a team after missing out last year.
Luckily for her last goal, she will be counting on the return of the whole team — seniors Alex Frye and Alexi Amer, junior Olivia Hammill and a handful of others.
“We have everyone back,” she says. “I think everyone has improved and we’re much better. State is our goal.”
Reif and Frye could be a formidable top duo this season. They were the only Wildcats last season to advance past Districts, with Reif getting past regionals en route to a 31st place finish at State.
While Reif’s times were nothing special last season in cross country, her track season was so exceptional the experts at flrunners.com think she’ll have a cross country breakthrough. Reif was third in both the 1600- and 3200-meter runs at the Class 4A State Championships, performances that lead flrunners.com to rank her No. 10 in the entire state in their preseason cross country rankings.
HIGH FLYING: While 6-foot-3 senior middle hitter middle hitter Bella Bonatakis (pictured) wants to play the toughest competition out there, you’ll have to excuse her for not shedding a tear when she found out that Wharton was no longer in the same district as Plant.
“Maybe it’s a little bit of a relief?,” Bonatakis said with a wide smile.
A little? Wharton has made the District final eight of the last nine seasons, and lost six of those games to Plant. Of all the teams that Wharton has ever played at least five times, it only has losing records against Carrollwood Day School, Bloomingdale and…Plant.
Goodbye, and good riddance.
With Bonatakis (200 kills and 85 blocks last year), senior setter Gabrielle Frye (295 assists) and senior libero Kylie Lauderdale (170 digs) returning, Wharton will be formidable again.
Throw in setter Danielle Galfond to help run the Wildcats’ 6-2 offense, future star Paige Boyd and returning hitter Ja-Niya Lamar, and a deep bench, and — Plant or no Plant — the Wildcats have all the makings of a team that can win that elusive Distrct title.
All is quiet at the Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC), which closed for good on July 31. So, what’s next?
Homes…probably. Maybe?
PCGC owner Bill Place had all but finalized a deal to sell the roughly 150 acres of land the course sits on to Pulte Homes, which had plans to build 230-240 homes on the property, but told the Neighborhood News last week that the company had changed its mind.
“I think they are a bit scared of the publicity that will come with this,” Place said.
Another builder, KB Home, also appears to have removed itself from consideration to redevelop PCGC.
Place is still talking to other builders.
Place is also still awaiting the results of environmental testing on the course, which was found to have high levels of arsenic and dieldrin from insecticide applications (from before he owned the property, Place says). He says the results have been sent to the Environmental Protection Commission and directions on how to remediate the soil so the land can be developed is forthcoming.
The cost is expected to be somewhere between $1 million-$3 million, but Place says a $3-million price tag would be out of the question.
And, that’s where the fight begins.
Leslie Green has lived on the 10th hole at PCGC for nearly 30 years, in one of roughly 130 (of the 1,400 total in Pebble Creek) homes physically located on the golf course.
She created the “Save Pebble Creek” Facebook page in March 2019, and is leading the charge to convince the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners to deny any developer the rezoning it will require to build over the golf course..
Green is against building additional homes on the golf course site for a number of reasons — including the environmental impacts, flooding issues, the loss of green space and how new homes would affect an area she says is already densely populated.
She also is skeptical of many of Place’s claims. She thinks a rezoning could lead to far more than just 240 homes, doesn’t feel Place was losing as much money on the golf course as he claimed (while sabotaging it with negative portrayals) and did little in the way of improvements the past few years.
“When you’re constantly threatening to close the course, people are going to stop coming,” she says.
Green, who live-streamed on Facebook on July 31, the final day the golf club was open, also was a vocal critic when Place tried to get a brownfield designation for the course, which would have provided him with a tax credit that could have covered three-fourths of the remediation costs.
She was emboldened by the successful efforts of the community to defeat the brownfield designation. And, she thinks it can happen again.
“We didn’t just start Save Pebble Creek, we’ve been working together on this for two years,” Green says. “We have a strong community.”
Mike Jacobson, the homeowners association president for more than 1,000 of the 1,400 homes in Pebble Creek, is taking a more measured approach. Like most residents in Pebble Creek, he prefers a golf course over homes. But, he says that the choice isn’t between a golf course or new homes, but rather between an abandoned golf course and new homes.
Jacobson is mostly concerned with the worst-case scenario, and has to look no further than Plant City. In 2013, Walden Lake homeowners recommended denying rezoning of its struggling golf course for development.
Instead, the course shut down, the owner went into foreclosure and the formerly lush green fairways became overgrown with weeds and foliage. The two-story clubhouse became a haven for trespassers. Home values in Walden Lake took a big hit.
“That is my biggest fear,” Jacobson says.
There are now, seven wasted years later, plans to build homes and a “city center” on the long-dormant Walden Lakes course.
While making it clear that he is opposed to development on the golf course site, Jacobson had met with Pulte representatives before their retreat about the benefits of redevelopment.
At the end of the day, he says, it comes down to what is best for Pebble Creek’s homeowners, and the value of their properties.
“We are trying to find what is strategically the best outcome for all of Pebble Creek and, quite frankly, there’s no great outcome,” he says. “The best outcome is to find a buyer who wants to operate it as a golf course. If there’s anybody out there that wants to operate it as a golf course, I’d love for them to reach out to me….we would fight to the end with the commissioners to say we have somebody who wants to operate it the way it’s been zoned and keep it as a golf course.”
He says, however, that to date, no one has done so.
While engineers for a new developer could soon begin forging plans, the fight picks up when the rezoning request reaches the Hillsborough County Commission, possibly in 4-6 months.
“Any full rezoning boils down to the vote of the County Commission,” Place says. “And you can’t predict that with full accuracy. I expect there to be opposition, and I understand that it will be contentious.”
Here’s some photos from the last day of the golf club.
Pick Of The Week: Skipper’s Smokehouse!
Although it’s located 20 minutes or so south of Wesley Chapel, the legendary Skipper’s Smokehouse (910 Skipper Rd., off N. Nebraska Ave. in North Tampa) has officially reopened — and anyone who has lived in this area for more than a few years surely has visited (and missed!) this fun and funky non-chain seafood restaurant and live music venue.
I visited the closed-since-Covid restaurant on one of its soft pre-reopening days a few weeks ago and was thrilled with the latest incarnation of this long-time favorite.
Back when Wesley Chapel had only a handful of homes and New Tampa had only a few restaurants of its own, Skipper’s was famous on both sides of the county line for its great drink prices, outstanding live music, fresh fish (like the yummy grilled wahoo, above right, that I brought home to Jannah), raw oysters and great wings (above left). My new friends Terri and Michael (below) enjoyed those crispy wings (with medium-spicy “hotter” sauce on the side) so much that they got a second order of them. And, Skipper’s has revamped its menu from its soft opening to include a few more of its all-time favorites, from gator ribs to pulled pork and from fried shrimp to crawdaddy mac and more.
And, the locally famous Grateful Dead cover band, Uncle John’s Band, returned for its first Thursday evening show at Skipper’s in more than a year just before we went to press with this issue, and another popular Skipper’s staple, The Red Elvises, put on the first Saturday night love music show at the Skipperdome.
Hopefully, Skipper’s also will bring back its famous, adults-only Freakers Ball this year to celebrate Halloween properly.
Call (813) 971-0666 or visit SkippersSmokehouse.com for more Grand Reopening info, showtimes and the new menu — and please tell them I sent you! — GN
More Food Coming Soon To Our Area!
Years ago, Carrabba’s Italian Grill was rumored to be coming to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in Wesley Chapel, on a still-undeveloped parcel located south of where Bonefish Grill used to be located (where it has been replaced by Señor Tequila).
Then, originally reported in 2019 to be coming to the Cypress Creek Town Center area on the north side of S.R. 56, along with the now-open Aussie Grill, and the new location of Bonefish, Carrabbas’s has finally begun construction. According to Pasco County’s permitting records, the 5,074-sq.-ft. Carrabba’s will be built in between Bonefish Grill and Aussie Grill. — JCC
Meanwhile, Zaxby’s (right), the fast-casual fried chicken eatery, is getting ready to open on the south side of 56, near ALDI and the Tidal Wave Car Wash and was still hiring additional employees as this issue went to press. — GN
The ExerScience Center Hosts A Ribbon Cutting!
Congratulations go out to my friend and Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Dr. Lauren Leiva of The ExerScience Center, located at 24706 S.R. 54 in Lutz, less than two miles east of the Tampa Premium Outlets.
Lauren, her family and staff hosted a Greater Pasco Chamber ribbon cutting on July 19 and she, of course, couldn’t resist the urge to cut the ribbon with a Samurai sword, instead of the traditional (and boring, at least to her) scissors.
Lauren has helped strengthen my knees and Jannah rehab her back and The ExerScience Center also offers outstanding personal training, nutrition counseling, group fitness and yoga classes, in addition to her award-winning physical therapy — as she has been named the People’s Choice Best of the Best Physical Therapist by the Tampa Bay Times two years in a row. To find out more, call (813) 803-7070 or visit TheExerScienceCenter.com. — GN