By Kyle Coppola
Umatilla High School Upgrades Baseball Complex
Umatilla High School continues to invest in its athletics facilities. The newest renovations include the baseball facility, which was due for upgrades. The facility joins a list of new renovations at Umatilla High School in recent years, including renovated locker rooms, new football goalposts, updated painting around the athletics facilities, and now the baseball field.
The renovations included heavy work on the covered batting cages, along with bullpen mounds. The work involved new bullpens, a new infield, and numerous other upgrades. The place is looking really good!
Umatilla baseball said, “We want to send a special thanks to all the parents who helped out today at the field clean-up, which happened on January 20th. The support for Umatilla Baseball is unmatched. The facilities are now ready for the 2024 season.”
This is an exciting season for Umatilla Baseball. The team is coming in with a ton of momentum from the previous season. Head coach Tanner Clark has been a huge proponent of that success, as have the players who have bought in and are proud to play for Umatilla High School.
“I could have played at other schools, but I wanted to build something here at Umatilla High School,” says Umatilla High School senior Trey Craft. “The administration has really done an amazing job in the past few years with the academics and athletics program, and I can’t think of a better way to reward that than representing Umatilla High School,” says Craft.
Trey Craft is committed to FAMU and is one of the best catchers in Lake County. Umatilla is undoubtedly looking forward to the opportunity of getting out on the ballfield in just a few short weeks!
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.