February 21, 2025
South Sumter High Boys Weightlifting Team Dominates Lake & Sumter Invitational
By Kyle Coppola
South Sumter High Boys Weightlifting Team Dominates Lake & Sumter Invitational
BUSHNELL, FL – The South Sumter High School Boys Weightlifting Team is off to a flying start of the 2025 season. The boys team dominated the first portion of the Lake And Sumter Indvitation which has been going on yearly since the late 1980s. They won with 64 points with The Villages finishing 2nd with 51 points and Leesburg High in 3rd place with 34 points. “It’s essentially our county championship. Since the FHSAA added snatch three years ago, we host the traditional invitational and then next month Leesburg High School will host the Lake and Sumter Olympic Invitational.” says South Sumter head weightlifting coach Chris Gauntlett.
South Sumter High took home wins in 5 out of 10 weightlifting classes. Leesburg would finish with 2 wins with Mount Dora, The Villages and East Ridge taking one win each. The results are below,
119 – Jeremy Lacey – Leesburg
129 – Tucker Simmons – South Sumter
139 – Felipe Alanis – South Sumter
154 – John Hunt – South Sumter
169 – Sebastian Fraire – South Sumter
183 – Hayes O’Hara – Mount Dora
199 – Luis Lopez – South Sumter
219 – Savion Latimore – Leesburg
238 – Maleek Williams – The Villages
UNL – Gabe Maldonado – East Ridge
(South Sumter may have dominated but The Villages is hot on their tail. Leesburg High finished 3rd with East Ridge taking home 4th place. Rounding out the top 5 was Mount Dora High. Photo Credit – Chris Gauntlett.)
For Leesburg High School, Jeremy Lacey was strong and should be a contender for a state championship in the 119 class. Meanwhile Savion Latimore impressed at the 219lb class. Latimore comes into 2025 looking as good as he ever has and he will be tough to beat this season. Head coach of Leesburg High Josh Boyer is coming off a state championship with his girls weightlifting team and is hoping to have similar success with the boys program once again in 2025.
Meanwhile for South Sumter, Tucker Simmons, Felipe Alanis, John Hunt, Luis Lopez and Sebastian Fraire are off to an incredible start to the year. They have all of Central Florida on notice and they will be among the favorites all season long. South Sumter High School is looking very strong and head coach Chris Gauntlett always puts together a great program on a yearly basis.
Big shoutout to The Villages Maleek Williams who won at the 238 class and Gabe Maldonado of East Ridge who won the Unlimited Class. Both those weightlifters have put in a ton of work this off-season and it shows. Maleek Williams will be among the top weightlifters to watch in the 238lb class this season. Hayes O’Hara of Mount Dora High School was also impressive.
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
