By Kyle Coppola
Lake & Sumter County High School Football Scores 11.5.22
The final week of regular season high school football is in the books. See who’s headed to the playoffs!
There were many great games but many seniors were playing in their final games. Emotions were running high so let’s see how your schools did and who’s headed to play more football?
South Sumter absolutely dominated on their way to secure the perfect season! The Raiders will be a #1 seed in the playoffs where they will likely either get Eustis or Mount Dora to begin round 1. Newberry should be in the playoffs as well so no really worries about the loss. As for South Sumter what an incredible run they’ve been on this season and we hope they can take it deep this year and potentially win a state championship!
Wildwood looked absolutely dominant in this game as they have all season. There was simply no answers for Eustis. The Panthers have secured a playoff spot so they didn’t want to get anyone injured in this contest. Unfortunately for the Panthers their main wide receiver Tyree Patterson who’s headed to the Florida Gators next year has shut it down for this year.
The Panthers won’t have him in the playoffs and that’s a big loss for this team. Wildwood on the other hand has a full arsenal of talent and they will look to exploit teams in the playoffs as they try and win a state championship congratulations to both teams for making the playoffs!
This was the final game for both teams. The Villages actually lead in this game 17-7 at which point Wiregrass went on a 33-0 run. It’s worth noting that The Villages star running back Alvon Isaac got injured early in the second quarter. He attempted to return but couldn’t muster up enough productivity to warrant staying in the game. Being that Isaac is just a junior the smart move was to remove him from the game and keep him healthy.
Wiregrass took over the game in the second half and never looked back. It’s worth noting that this was the last game ever played at The Original Villages Charter School. The Villages moves into a new high school next year so this was a bitter sweet ending for everyone. Emotions were running high and many tears were shed as the lights went out for the final time. We wish The Villages the best of luck transitioning to a brand new school in 2023!
Mount Dora had to win this game to keep their playoff hopes alive and unfortunately they couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways because Titusville won against Crescent City. The Hurricanes had an amazing season. First year Head Coach Luke Hutchinson got the most out of his players and successfully gave the Hurricanes their first winning season since 2014. This team has nothing to hang it’s head about and even though the playoffs likely won’t be in the cards this team will be remembered for a long time to come.
Final game for both these teams as Umatilla and Bronson were eliminate from the Playoffs many weeks ago. This was a nice sendoff win for all the senior players on Umatilla. They also ended the season at 5-5 and avoided a losing record which is something to cheer about if your a Bulldog fan.
East Ridge got the win against Tavares to improve to 4-6 on the season. East Ridge turned their season around the past few weeks with a few big wins for them. It may not be enough to get them into the playoffs but they fought till the bitter end to win one final game for the seniors.
For Tavares what a brutal season, they will have to wait an entire year until they can try and win a football game. After coming off last season with a 9-2 record this is very disappointing for this team. We only hope they can turn things around next year!
South Lake just never could get anything going this season and they will have to wait an entire year until they can try and win a football game. They are tied with Tavares with the longest losing streak in Lake & Sumter Counties dating back to November of 2021. They’ll have to wait until 2023 to try and break that steak.
No surprise here we knew Lake Minneola was a great football team and they match towards the playoffs with an 8-1 record to end the season. What a terrific year for the Hawks and they will wait to see who they are playing in week 1 of the playoffs.
As for Leesburg to say this year was rough is an understatement. The Yellow Jackets had a few good things happen this season but they’ll want to re-evaluate some things in the off season and hopefully come out as a better football team next year.
This one was a complete surprise MDCA is headed to the state championship game as CFCA had to Forfeit this game. We are still uncertain as to why. We got word at around 5pm yesterday that this was going to be the result. We wish MDCA the best of luck as they have a championship game next Friday night against a TBD opponent! Congratulations to the Bulldogs we wish it were under better circumstances.
That’s a wrap on the regular season! 2022 has brought us a lot of fun memories! We hope you enjoyed the coverage! Next up is the playoffs and wouldn’t you know it high school basketball starts this week! We will be covering all the Lake & Sumter county basketball teams in our area so be on the lookout for that! Best of luck to all the seniors who aren’t headed to the playoffs! Thank you for all the memories!
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.
