Editor’s note: This is the fourth part of a summer series revisiting the best of “The Prep Zone” sports show at locally owned Sonic Drive-In of Gainesville featuring interviews with area coaches and players with hosts Mike Ridaught and Marty Pallman from the 2023-24 seasons.
The Buchholz baseball team and head coach Ron Brooks, runner-up for the Florida Dairy Farmers Class 6A Coach of the Year award, joined Mainstreet Daily News Sports Director Mike Ridaught and co-host Marty Pallman on their weekly radio show on Wednesday, May 22.
The Bobcats (24-9) advanced to their first state championship game in school history and finished as Class 6A state runners-up. Buchholz, which edged Pace in the regional semifinals, advanced to its first final four in program history with a 1-0 win at home against Hagerty (Oviedo) in the 6A-Region 1 Final.
Buchholz dominated Bloomingdale (Valrico), 12-0, in a 6A state semifinal at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers but fell to Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) in the title game.
Below are excerpts from the May 22 interview — edited for length and clarity — of The Prep Zone’s interview. You can listen to the full conversation online.
Q: Coach Brooks, congratulations on a great season. I know it didn’t end up quite like you wanted to but it was the first time ever in the Final Four, first-ever state championship game appearance, a district championship again, just kind of sum up the season that was.
Ron Brooks: It ended up really well in terms of where we got to. Of course, I’m extremely disappointed to watch somebody else celebrate, but man what a ride. It was not an easy year. It was up and down especially in the middle of the year in terms of kind of how we were playing. Anytime you’re 24-9, I mean that’s a great year don’t get me wrong and we’re blessed to have the year that we had, but we weren’t firing all cylinders towards the middle of the year.
We’d pitch well but not hit well or we would hit well and not pitch well, so it just kind of all came full circle there starting around the week before the district championship. Really tough week there, then you battle Forest (Ocala), you battle Lincoln (Tallahassee), Mandarin (Jacksonville) during that week, and then we go in the district tournament, and we start playing really good baseball, what we were capable of doing. Then you go into the regionals, really fun baseball games, several of them close there, and then you go to Fort Myers. So overall, great year.
Q: You mentioned how difficult it was watching the other team celebrate on the field after the championship game. Is that a motivator to make it back there next year?
Ron Brooks: You see the team that beat you and you feel like, ‘Man, if we would have just played better.’ Now don’t get me wrong. They were the better team that day, right? Absolutely. Dwyer was the better team the way they played but you watch that game and you’re like, we’re close. We’re in a good spot in terms of how we play, how we coach, how we act. We’re doing the right things, and I just feel like we’ll be rewarded for that. And, you know, we were rewarded for the season that we had. We worked hard for it. We have plans to come back next year and work just as hard and see what happens.
Q: Anthony, tell us how it felt to be able to go that far, first time ever in Buchholz history to make a final four and then also make the state championship game. It was a great season.
Anthony Wilkie (SR): It was surreal. We all knew that we had it in us. Our goal at the beginning of the season was to make it far into the playoffs, and we knew we could do it. But we had some adversity early in the season. We weren’t playing great. We really just weren’t sure who we were as a team. And I think we really became closer not only on the field, but as teammates to and as friends, between playing hacky sack in the locker room and doing stuff off the field. I’m sure you guys saw us playing hacky sack during some of those rain delays. But I think just that and getting hot at the right time really helped us. It was just a really awesome time in Fort Myers. One of the better baseball experiences in my life for sure. It was an awesome time.
Q: Was there kind of a turning point for this team, you know, when maybe the light did come on?
Anthony Wilkie (SR): Yeah, I believe that the turning point was the game we walked off in extras against Lincoln, because that’s a really good squad. We just came together, and that was the first moment we had where we were like, ‘Dang, this is fun. This could be a really fun season.’ So yeah, I’d say that game. We walked it off.
Q: Wyatt, you will be back next year so looking ahead you guys have a good nucleus to work with next season.
Wyatt Clarke (JR): Yeah, we do. We have a really good group of guys that I think helped help this team this year out a lot. We had Ced (Cedaris Smith) go down with the injury in kind of the middle of the season that was kind of like an oh my goodness moment for us. He was leading our team in (batting) average, and we had a couple guys step up, like (sophomore) Blake Brewer really stepped up in that moment, Aidan Kastensmidt, those young guys, so it was really cool to see those young guys come up, so we know that we’re going to be all right next year.
Q: Conner, tell me how it feels. Just kind of sum up the season because it was a great run for you guys.
Conner Brown (SR): Yeah, I mean, it’s always good to make history. It’s still been a little hard to sleep since then (championship game loss). But you get used to it and you look back on it and give thanks for your coaches and your teammates for being along with you along the way, and just making history for something Buchholz has never done before.