Palmetto alum Katie Burge helps Great Britain softball win silver. Plus college signing & golf
Katie Burge, a 2020 Palmetto High School grad, helped the Great Britain national softball team win a silver medal at the Women’s Softball European Championship in Barcelona, Spain.
In the six-day tournament, Great Britain went 9-1 to reach the finals where it dropped the gold medal game to the Netherlands. Earlier in the tournament, Great Britain beat the Netherlands. The team also defeated Ukraine, Turkey, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, France, Spain. Great Britain’s only other loss was to the Czech Republic, going 9-2 overall.
Burge, 20, batted .393 (.750 slugging) with 11 hits, 12 runs, seven RBI and five triples. She played left field mostly and second base as well.
By placing in the top three, Great Britain qualified for the Women’s World Softball Championship, which starts next year and concludes in 2024. The team is now ranked 12th internationally.
Great Britain ranked very low entering the tournament because the team didn’t compete last year, stemming from Covid issues.
In 2019, Burge nearly helped Great Britain qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. She has been a member of the Great Britain national team since 2019.
Her parents, Neil and Emma, were born in Great Britain. Katie was born in Miami, giving her dual citizenship. In travel softball, she competed for the Miami Stingrays and the South Florida Diamond Dusters.
Burge will be a junior at the University of Central Florida in the fall. The Knights are a top 15 softball program nationally.
In her freshman season at UCF, she played in 38 games (with 15 starts) and batted .284 with 19 hits, 12 runs, 10 RBI. In her sophomore season, she played in 41 games (with eight starts) and batted .219 with seven hits, 14 runs and four RBI. She played left field, centerfield and second base.
In high school, she was a two-time All-State first team selection and was a two-time Miami Herald All-Dade first teamer. She was awarded team MVP honors. She also made Miami Herald All-Dade first team in golf. She played four years of golf for Palmetto, too, going to state her freshman season along with her older sister, Hannah.
Golf
Several golfers from South Florida high schools qualified for the 74th U.S. Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Oregon.
The locals included Nicholas Prieto (Florida Christian), Luke Clanton (American Heritage-Plantation), Lorenzo Rodriguez (Belen), and Christian Figueredo (Columbus).
After two days of tournament play, Prieto tied for 19th, scoring 70-70 (-3), and Clanton tied for 35th, scoring 74-68 (-1). Each qualified for match play. Rodriguez and Figueredo did not make the cut.
Prieto advanced to the round of 32, before losing 5 and 3 to Luke Potter.
Clanton reached the quarterfinals, losing after 19 holes to Nicholas Dunlap.
College signing
After an outstanding senior season at Miami Beach Senior High School, Jonathan Gaynor will continue his baseball career at NCAA Division I Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania.
Gaynor, a left-hander, hit .292 with a .553 on-base-percentage. As a closer he posted a 0.00 ERA. He made no errors at pitcher and first base.
Off the field, he scored a .485 weighted GPA. Also a jazz pianist, he won the prestigious Louis Armstrong Jazz Award.
He had perfect attendance from kindergarten through high school graduation. He will major in electro-mechanical engineering at Penn State.
New athletic directors, coaches
For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have new sports administration and/or coaching hires to announce, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
Submit sports results
For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have varsity results, top performers and stats for this column, email hssports@miamiherald.com.
They will run in the newspaper and online. Photos accepted, too. No deadline. Send after the game, the next day or weekly. You will be alerted when it will appear in the newspaper and online.
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Roundup compiled by Jim Varsallone
jvarsallone@miamiherald.com
