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Record-Setting Start for Coral Springs Charter’s Baseball Team

by Matt Rothman April 14, 2019

by Matt Rothman April 14, 2019 28 views

Record-Setting Start for Coral Springs Charter’s Baseball Team

Coral Springs Charter Panthers Baseball. From their Facebook page.

By: Matt Rothman

It has been an incredible start to the season for Coral Springs Charter High School baseball team as the Panthers are off to a 11-3 (5-2) start to the season.

After finishing under .500 last season, Coral Springs has made their mark this season after their historically good start.

“It’s been an absolutely phenomenal season thus far,” said head coach Charlie Fine. “We got off to a crazy hot start. Our school has had some really good teams in the past and I don’t know if we ever started 9-0. Recently we hit a little bit of a struggle, but that’s baseball. You don’t go undefeated in baseball. That’s not part of the sport.”

Their first big win of the season came against North Broward Prep as the Panthers won 3-2 in 10 innings. They also had quality wins over Northeast and South Plantation In non-conference games.

Leading the way on the mound this season has been senior Matthew Magrann. His 1.44 ERA is tops amongst the team from pitchers who have thrown at least seven innings and holds a perfect 3-0 record. He also has one save this season.

Magrann is one of a handful of players on the team that is already committed to play collegiate baseball. He is set to play for FIU in the 2019-2020 season.

The other arm on the mound that has been getting it done for the Panthers has been Chris Kahler. The junior, who is committed to George Washington University, has appeared in eight games and is 2-1 on the season with a respectable 2.96 ERA in 28.1 innings striking out more than one batter per inning. As a team Coral Springs is pitching to a 2.67 ERA

The other Panther that is committed as of now to continue their baseball career in college is Matt Kavanaugh at Nova Southeastern.

Offensively, Coral Springs hasn’t done it with the power as they just have two home runs on the season courtesy of Magrann and Justin Chung. Chung leads the team with a batting average of .356 and a team high of 11 RBI’s and 14 runs.

“We are not really a home run hitting team,” Fine said. “We don’t have a lot of power. We have to manufacture runs. It’s fun. We have fighters. We have guys that will fight and compete to keep us in every game.”

Without the power, the Panthers have been stellar on the base paths. They have 33 stolen bases in 14 games. Junior Joey Campbell leads the team with eight steals and Damian Rodriguez has seven.

Coral Springs will head in the road for two games before returning home for a rematch against North Broward Prep on April 23 at 6:30 p.m. Following that game, the Panthers will have three more games before the Panthers head to regionals which will be held at North Broward in the beginning of May.

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Matt Rothman

Matt Rothman is a 2018 graduate from Florida Gulf Coast University receiving his bachelor’s degree in journalism and then graduated from the University of Florida as a graduate student. He also works for the Mohave Valley Daily News in Bullhead City, Arizona covering high school sports.