Area Youths Learning How To Play Cricket

While many New Tampa parents can sign their kids up for leagues in sports like baseball, basketball, football and soccer that they themselves played as kids, the same opportunity hasn’t existed for the area’s large Indian population.

But now, that has changed.

Nagesh Nayak and Prahlad Madabhushi, the president and managing director, respectively, of the Tampa Premier League (TPL) — which is based at Wesley Chapel District Park on Boyette Rd. — have begun holding youth cricket camps at New Tampa’s Community Park on Thursday nights. The hope is to take younger kids and spark interest, and provide the tools and knowledge, in a game that is near and dear to the hearts of their parents and their Indian culture.

“The reason we started it was there was a great deal of interested parents, asking if there was any cricket coaching for their kids,” said Madabhushi. “There is a large Indian population in New Tampa, so there was a lot of demand.”

Nayak and Madabhushi reached out to City of Tampa Council member Luis Viera for a place to hold their camps, and Viera helped secure the New Tampa location.

While you can find kids learning how to play in the streets and playgrounds in India (like American children learn baseball, basketball and soccer), that is not the case for cricket in the U.S. Nor are there any leagues for younger players, like Little League baseball or Pop Warner football.

Nayak says he would like to provide something close to that for interested players in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel. The goal is to develop new players who could then advance to playing actual matches in local adult leagues.

Roughly 40 eager players showed up on Sept. 23 for the first New Tampa camp, which has 4-6 coaches available to teach each week. The kids, who range in age from 5 to 16, are shown how to throw and hit the ball, while also learning the rules of the game.

“I think everyone liked what they were experiencing,” says Nayak, an accomplished cricket player himself. “Hitting the ball, throwing the ball, catching the ball….especially hitting the ball…they enjoyed it.”

Madabhushi has been pleased with the early reception to the camps.

“It’s been amazing,” he says. “The kids are so into it, some of them don’t want to go home. And, the parents appreciate it as well.” 

While the first camp hosted all children of Indian parents, Nayak says the camps are open to everyone. In fact, he says, because of the similarity to baseball — both sports involve a pitcher (called a bowler in cricket) throwing to a batter whose goal is to hit the ball — he’d be interested to see current and former baseball players take a shot at cricket. 

“I think that would be a good transfer of talent,” he says.

Nayak and other adult players in the area typically play on Saturdays and Sundays on a makeshift pitch on some extra, unused land at the Wesley Chapel District Park, roughly five miles north of New Tampa. Their hope is to eventually secure a regulation field, level and well-maintained, at the same park, for future matches and tournaments.

As the new players at the New Tampa camp develop and learn the game, they could graduate to games in Wesley Chapel with the better players.

“Out of the kids we had out there, 25 are between the ages of 5-12,” said Madabhushi. “But, there’s also about 8 or 10 of them who are ages 13-16, who we can take it to the next level. The first step is to move up to the adult league, and when they get familiar with that level, to take them to tournaments.” 

Weather permitting, the camps are held every Thursday from 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. and cost $70 for eight weeks of training.

 For more information, email tampapremierleague@gmail.com, or visit Facebook @TampaCricket.

Coyote’s Poekert Is Eager To Return To State

“Last year wasn’t…that good. I didn’t run a very good race at Regionals. But it definitely motivated me on a new level . Not making it to State probably helped me. It got me more fired up for track.”

— Cypress Creek High junior Zack Poekert

For most cross country runners, the offseason is all about putting in the miles. However, after putting in the miles before his sophomore season, Cypress Creek’s Zack Poekert switched things up a bit for 2021.

Instead, the Coyotes junior built more “tempo” runs —  longer distances at a slower pace, shorter distances at a faster pace — into his training regimen and the results are paying off this season.

After winning a preseason jamboree in Palmetto — his first-ever first-place finish in high school — Zack reeled off four straight top-5 finishes against stiff competition, including a first-place finish at the River Ridge Invitational, and has emerged as a State contender in Class 3A.

Getting in the tempo work this summer, he says, has made him stronger and more confident.

“I notice the difference,” he says. “It made me a lot more confident going into these meets knowing that my training was there, and that I could compete with these (other runners) now.”

Zack Poekert (left), with coach John Hoffman, after his fifth-place finish at the Florida Horse Park Invitational in Ocala on Sept. 3 (Photos courtesy of the Poekerts)

Zack, who broke 17 minutes for the first time at the jamboree, broke 16 minutes for the first time when he ran a 15:58 to finish fifth at the Florida Horse Park Invitational in Ocala on Sept. 3.

Zack has been ranked as high as No. 18 in the state according to flrunners.com, and earlier this season had the third-best time in Class 3A.

Zack says his goal this year is to run a 15:30, a steep drop from the 16:30 or so he has been averaging. But, he is motivated and ran a 15:43 in his River Ridge win.

He was a freshman on the Coyotes team that made it to the State meet in 2019, and as a sophomore in 2020 helped the team win its first-ever district championship. However, the Coyotes did not qualify for a return trip to States, and Zack just missed going as an individual.

A strong track season (4:28 in the mile, 9:48 in the two-mile) has him ready for a bounce back.

Zack’s passion for running started when he was younger, running with his mother Ronda, a former track and cross country standout for Plant, who helped the Panthers to the 1991 and ‘92 State cross country championships. 

When Ronda got back into running after years away from the sport, Zack asked if he could join her. Together, they trained and eventually ran in a handful of 5K races, like Miles for Moffitt and Gasparilla. Eventually, Zack got to the point where he was leaving Ronda in the dust.

“I would see him at the beginning of the race, and at the end of the race,” says Ronda, laughing. 

His passion for the sport, however, grew quickly during his freshman year at Cypress Creek, buoyed by his trip to the State meet.

Ronda gives credit for Zack’s success to his coaches, John Hoffman and Elsa Rehberg, and dad Bryan will occasionally go over the course with his son.

When Ronda does have a tip to lend, it’s usually about the mental aspect of racing, and strategy. Primarily, running your own race even if the rest of the field decides to go out either too fast or too slow, and then maintaining where your tempo needs to be during the race, is paramount to success, she says.

“It’s 100 percent,” Ronda says. “If you let that slip throughout the race, it can throw off everything.”

That’s good advice in a tough District 3A-2, which features last year’s State runner-up Sunlake High and standouts like Colby Robbins and Alex Pena. Poekert already has run against both at multiple meets this season, finishing behind them by roughly 10 seconds in a few races, with more head-to-head opportunities to come. That competition will make Poekert, and the rest of the Coyotes, better by season’s end.

Poekert says he is looking forward to the challenge.

“Our team is really young but you can see that they are starting to get really good,” Poekert says. “But if we don’t go as a team, I plan on getting back to States as an individual. My goal is to run that 15:30, and be All-State at the State meet.”

Ready for takeoff!

Rocco Becht. (Photos: Charmaine George)

Quarterback Rocco Becht stands on the launch pad, ready to reach the stars.

He has been waiting.

He waited his turn as a freshman at Wiregrass Ranch High as the junior varsity starter, was prematurely thrown into the starting role as a sophomore and saw his junior year clipped by an inexperienced team and Covid-19. He has still managed to put up good numbers, but they have not met his expectations.

He’s a senior now. And he is ready.

“I definitely feel like I have something to prove,” he says.

Rocco is ready for liftoff.

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Rocco is the son of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Anthony Becht, although he shares few of his pop’s imposing physical attributes. Anthony was a 6-foot-6, 270-pound monster of a tight end. Rocco is a little on the smallish side — he’s now 6’-1”, 185 lbs. — and says that when he played Pop Warner football, “I’m not going to lie, I was afraid to get hit.”

However, he acquired the love for football watching dad catch passes and block defenders in the NFL. And, he could throw a football better than the other kids, so he ended up being the quarterback. He played flag football for Liberty Middle School in New Tampa, and full-pads Pop Warner football for the South Pasco Predators.

What he lacked in physical stature he made up for with hard work and smarts.

As a freshman at Wiregrass Ranch in 2018, he started for the JV. Just a month before the start of the 2019 season, varsity starter Hunter Helton bolted for Armwood. Rocco was elevated to starter, and threw for 1,985 yards, 21 touchdowns and just eight interceptions while 

leading the Bulls to the postseason and a 7-4 final record.

“He got thrown into the fire,” Anthony says. “Physically, he couldn’t develop his sophomore year because he was still young and just getting into weights. Mentally, he had to speed that process up. I didn’t know what to expect. He wasn’t very big then. I was worried about him physically…but he did a great job with it. Once his sophomore season was done…he started thinking, ‘You know, I got something here.’”

Rocco says until that season, he wasn’t sure if he hadn’t peaked, if there was a “next level” waiting for him. But, fully committed afterwards, he set his sights on being great.

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From the end of his sophomore season through this summer, few have dedicated themselves more to their craft than Rocco.

“I’m not sure anyone has worked harder,” says Wiregrass Ranch head coach Mark Kantor. “He’s dedicated, that’s for sure. He sets the example.”

Bryson Rodgers will be one of Rocco’s top targets this season.

Rocco went to his father after the 2019 season and told Anthony that he was all in. It was all Anthony needed to hear. It started in the garage of their Wesley Chapel home, where, as the pandemic raged, dad laid out the roadmap to success for his son, which included working out, eating right, watching film and absorbing the game.

Rocco continued honing his skills with noted quarterback coach Chip Bennett and his son C.J. in Tampa. He survived a junior slump in a Covid-19-shortened season and this past offseason attacked the recruiting camp circuit with a vengeance.

In April, he orally committed to the Big 12’s Iowa State University in Ames. Although he had received an offer — with more likely to come — from Ole Miss a week before he committed, Rocco passed on Lane Kiffin and the prestigious Southeastern Conference and stuck with the Cyclones, who offered him first, during his sophomore year.

A 4.0 student, Rocco will graduate from Wiregrass Ranch in December and enroll at Iowa State in January.

Also in April, Rocco was named the MVP at a Rivals Camp in Miami, earning an invite to the prestigious Rivals100 5-Star Challenge in Atlanta in June.

Competing against the likes of Cade Klubnik (Clemson commitment), A.J. Swann (Maryland commit) and other higher-rated quarterbacks, Rocco stunningly dominated the event and again earned MVP honors.

“I was told I was one of the last guys picked to go to the Rivals thing,” Rocco says. “I went out there and balled. That put a bunch of confidence in me. It gave me a lot of momentum for this season.”

Two weeks ago, Rocco earned another star in the Rivals rankings, making him officially a 4-Star-rated quarterback.

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This season, Rocco will lead a Bulls team that is loaded on offense and still developing on defense, and is hoping to open one of its most promising seasons Friday. The Bulls Aug. 27 opener against Hernando and the originally scheduled game Friday against Wesley Chapel were postponed. No replacement has been announced.

No matter when it officially starts, Rocco is “stoked” about the possibilities this season. Like many of his teammates, he has been working hard for this moment.

Anthony will be calling the plays at Wiregrass Ranch this season, as the team’s offensive coordinator. In the spring game, Rocco threw four TD passes to three different receivers. He and wideout Bryson Rodgers — who has offers from Alabama and Florida, to name a few — might be the best QB-WR tandem in Tampa Bay high school football.

But, they are just pieces of a puzzle, Anthony says. “Rocco wants to win,” he says. “That’s what is most important. Not how many stars you have, not how many yards you have, but can we go to the playoffs? You throw for 450 yards, tweet that out, people put likes on it, and it’s good for a week. He wants to do something with this team that lasts a lifetime.”

Rocco may have been a late bloomer, but he still has plenty of quarterback swagger. He says he believes that the Bulls can win every game this season and make a deep run in the playoffs. He has circled the Mitchell game on Sept. 10, after the Mustangs returned the opening kickoff in last year’s game against the Bulls en route to a 42-14 romp. Powerhouses like Armwood and Tampa Bay Tech await the Bulls as well.

“I feel like I’ve earned everything I’ve gotten, from hard work and dedication to the game,” Rocco says. “It’s going to pay off at the end of the day. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me.”

Yes, Rocco Becht is on the launch pad, ready to reach the stars. 

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Wesley Chapel Area Prep Football Preview

WR Dontrell Clerkley, left, and QB Owen Walls should be one of the top tandems in the area this season. (Photos: Charmaine George)

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.

Linebacker Ayden Roysdon, left, led the Wildcats with six sacks last season, while WR Nehemiah Morgan had a team-nest 399 yards receiving and three TDs.

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.”

Linebackers Nate Kidd, left, and Abram Beer lead the way on defense.

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.

Success Comes Quickly For Cypress Creek Lacrosse

In just their third high school lacrosse season, the Cypress Creek High lacrosse team went 15-5 and captured its first District championship. (Photos courtesy of Jason Alvis)

Cypress Creek High is only a four-year-old school, but it has already earned district championships in several sports. And now, you can add girls lacrosse to that list.

The Coyotes, who started as a club team in 2018 before becoming an official varsity sport in 2019, won the school’s first lacrosse District championship (Class A-District 5) in April when they defeated Lake Wales 11-10. 

That was followed a week later by a loss to nationally-ranked Orlando Lake Highland Prep in the A-2 Regional playoffs, but Cypress Creek finished 15-5 and won all six of its District games.

Quite a turnaround for a program that could barely field a team its first season.

“We had a couple of years under our belt and then, this year, it just kinda clicked,’’ Coyotes coach Jason Alvis says. “They had experience. It was amazing how much it took off because of that.’’

It’s also amazing how far the team has come since its inaugural season.

Alvis, who never played lacrosse but got into the sport just through attending oldest daughter Jordan’s club practices as a freshman for Wiregrass Ranch High’s club team, petitioned Cypress Creek at the behest of his daughter to see if the school could start its own club team.

The school said okay, but had one question: “Who’s going to be the coach?,’’ Alvis remembers.  

Even though he was not a teacher on campus, because it was only a club team, it turned out Alvis was going to be the coach.

In 2018, he formed the club team, using players from both Cypress Creek and Wesley Chapel high schools and playing other high school club teams. While club lacrosse isn’t sanctioned by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) and you don’t compete for district or state titles, the Coyotes did get to play an international friendly against Cheltenham High School from the U.K.

“After the game, the girls exchanged stories and gifts,” Alvis says. “It was quite the experience.”

Jason Alvis (right) and assistant coach Sydney Maziarz celebrate the Coyotes’ District title.

However, because lacrosse wasn’t exactly a well-known sport and had to compete for players with the more established spring sports like tennis, softball and track and field, it was tough to drum up interest the first year. Alvis says he never had more than 16 girls in 2018; you need 12 for a full lineup. 

“It was bad,’’ Alvis says. “I had four or five girls at any one practice. With me not being on campus, I couldn’t recruit. I told some of our club girls that they had to find multi-sport girls and get them to try lacrosse. We had just enough girls to field a team.’’

In 2019, the Cypress Creek lacrosse team was sanctioned by the FHSAA and could play other high school teams. The Coyotes finished 7-9 that year, and started off the 2020 season 6-3 with mostly underclassmen before Covid-19 ended the season.

With a group of 10 seniors and some talented underclassmen returning, Cypress Creek was ready to prove itself this season. With a much-more-competitive roster of 23 players, the Coyotes started with 7-0 and 10-1 records, on the way to a 15-5 season. Two of their five losses were by a single goal.

The experienced Coyotes powered their way to an unlikely appearance in the District A-5 championship game. After trailing 9-4 at halftime, they showed some of the resilience built up in their early years and locked down Lake Wales, holding the Highlanders to one goal in the second half to win 11-10 and capture the District title.

“I didn’t know what winning was like,’’ says junior midfielder Liberty Mermerian, who says she won two games in two years for her previous high school team in Boise, ID, before transferring to Cypress Creek. “I found out it was about the work you put in. My first high school team, we didn’t really put in much effort. But here, when we won that District (final), it was all about the attitude of our players and the amount of effort we put in. When we all celebrated on that field and everybody was hugging each other, that was an earned moment.’’

The Coyotes not only earned their first-ever District championship banner, they also received some postseason accolades. Three players were named first team All-Conference: Junior defender and team captain Miranda Garcia, sophomore Avery Smith (team-high 82 goals) and senior Brianna Segers (65 goals).

Two players were named to the second team: Mermerian and Kendall Smith. 

Cypress Creek was named the Sunshine Athletic Conference Team of the Year and Alvis was named the Coach of the Year. 

Despite losing 10 seniors to graduation from this team, Alvis believes the success is just beginning for this program. There will only be three seniors next year, but he knows there is talent in the younger classes, including his daughter Jenna, who will be a junior. 

“And I’ve heard that with our success, girls from other sports are saying ‘Hey, I think I’m going to try lacrosse now,’’ Alvis says.