- June 15, 2025
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The spring prep sports season is just about over in the Sarasota area.
We’ve already covered the best stories of this spring season, and now it’s time to give some shine to the top individual players.
Each of the athletes listed below are standouts for their statistics and achievements this season, but many of them also shined beyond what you’ll see in the box score.
These are the spring sports players of the year:
Sarasota High baseball is in Metcalf’s blood. His great grandfather, Roland Metcalf, played the sport at the club level in the 1930s. His grandfather, Clyde Metcalf, played there, too, and went on to become a Hall-of-Fame coach who led the Sailors to several state championships. His father, Mike Metcalf, also followed in those footsteps and played for the Sailors.
Until this year, however, it looked as if that tradition would end with Mark, who played for Florida State University High School in Tallahassee the past two years. Mark took fate into his own hands and moved in with his grandparents to live out his childhood dream.
That wound up being a difference maker for the Sailors (22-8-1), who had struggled offensively last year. Mark led Sarasota in hits (36), runs (32), and stolen bases (20) while starting at shortstop. He also batted .364, knocked in 17 runs and struck out just nine times in 121 plate appearances.
It’s hard to imagine what Cole’s high school career stats could have been if she had joined the Riverview softball team her freshman year, but her teammates are thankful she eventually did.
Cole battled anxiety and nerves at the high school level, and didn’t join the softball program until her junior year. She found fast friends and quickly became regarded as one of the best pitchers in the area.
The senior left-hander turned in a ludicrous stat line this season as she led the Rams to a 20-6 record. Cole owned a 19-3 record in the pitcher’s circle with a 0.37 ERA and 281 strikeouts while pitching 152 ⅓ of the team’s 171 innings.
She was also one of the team’s top hitters, with a team-leading .429 batting average, 30 hits, 22 RBIs and two home runs.
Piotrowska moved from Poland to Sarasota in pursuit of better opportunities in tennis, and she capitalized on them at Riverview.
The senior won a No. 1 singles district championship and a No. 1 doubles district championship alongside Kathleen Siddons.
Tennis Recruiting Network lists her as the No. 215 recruit in the nation and No. 34 overall in Florida, but has instead opted to pursue the pre-med program at the University of Florida.
This time last year, Rodriguez was still living in Venezuela. He moved to Sarasota in the summer of 2024 for better opportunities in life and tennis, and seized them in his lone high school year in the area.
Rodriguez recruited friends to help restart the boys tennis team at Booker and made the most of it. He went 9-3 in No. 1 singles play and won a district championship in No. 1 singles.
He hopes to play in college, too, even if he has to prove himself via a walk-on opportunity — something he now has good experience doing.
Like many football players, Miller competes in track and field in the spring to continue his training year-round. That started as a sprinter until he first picked up a javelin last year.
Though Riverview doesn’t have a coach who specializes in javelin, that didn’t deter Miller, who did his own research and reached out to professionals for training. Still a relative novice in the sport, Miller broke the school record for the longest javelin throw several times this season and won district and regional championships before earning a silver medal at the Class 4A state championships with a throw of 58.76 meters.
He also continued with his sprinting as a member of the 4x100 relay team and in the 100-meter dash.
Edwards was an all-around track star for Booker this season. She was the team’s top 400-meter dash runner and the best at both 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles.
It wasn’t as if Edwards was only good at Booker, though. She won district and regional championships in both 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles.
At the 2A state championships, Edwards ran the 100-meter hurdles in 14.68 seconds to place second and ran the 400-meter hurdles in 1:03.94 for an eighth-place finish.
The Cardinal Mooney beach volleyball team boasted many talented junior players last year, but only Russell returned for her senior year this spring.
She embraced her role as a team leader, acting as a secondary coach while she waited her turn for the No. 1 pairing to play.
Despite having a roster filled with freshmen, the Cougars finished the season with a 13-4 record as Russell led the way by going 15-1. She committed to play the sport for Austin Peay University next season.
Riverview was in desperate need of a senior leader after losing some of its most talented players to graduation last year and Steinwachs lived up to the challenge.
Along with serving as a role model and mentor for the Rams’ younger players, she also scored four goals per game (85 on the season) and assisted on 15 other goals.
Steinwachs led Riverview to an 11-10 season, winning a district championship and a regional playoff game along the way.
Bergstrom not only led the Sarasota area with 41 goals this season (2.3 per game), but also in assists (26).
He was one of the area’s most effective players as he scored on half of his shots and 66% of his shots on goal.
Though Cardinal Mooney went just 8-11 this year, the Cougars ranked No. 45 in the state thanks to a strength of schedule that was the sixth most difficult in Class 1A.
Soccer players typically aren’t found on weightlifting teams, but Schrum bucks the trend. A goalkeeper for the Sailors, Schrum was the area’s most successful boys weightlifter this year.
He won a district championship in the 139-pound weight class in both the Olympic and traditional style lifts, won a regional championship in the traditional lift and was regional runner-up in the Olympic style lift.
Schrum finished the season with a sixth-place finish in the traditional lift at the 3A state championships. His best lift of the postseason was a 450-pound total (bench press and clean and jerk).
