By Kyle Coppola
East Ridge Girls Soccer To Face Lake Mary In Regional Quarterfinal
The East Ridge Girls Soccer team will face Lake Mary in the FHSAA Regional quarterfinals on Monday. East Ridge is fresh off winning a district championship and is the #6 seed in the tournament. They will be facing Lake Mary. Both teams come in with no losses this season and a few ties among the respective programs.
We got the chance to talk to East Ridge Lady Knights soccer coach Leon Florez, who says, “I think it’s going to be a great matchup. Lake Mary is a very good team, but just like I tell our girls, so are we,” said coach Florez.
East Ridge is 14-0-2 on the season and should be able to contend with Lake Mary. “They have three great players with Brooke, Ava, and Lindsey. They are very technical players that can finish. It will be a good challenge for our midfield and defenders, but I feel our team is ready,” said coach Florez.
“We have to come out and work hard, but like I told them, we have to work hard together. We are going to focus on our game, and that’s what we’ve been preparing. We will make sure that our game plan doesn’t change, regardless of who we play. It’s going to be a great match,” said Coach Florez.
This should be a fun one; East Ridge comes in with University of Georgia Commit Cala Jackson, who has scored 35 goals this season. She also leads the team in assists. You also have Morgan Guillemette, who has been equally as strong this season. Guillemette has 21 goals this season and 20 assists.
The midfield battle could be where the game is won or lost, as is usually the case when you reach this time of year. Each team is very equally matched. In the case of Lake Mary and East Ridge, one team will lose their first game of the year.
The East Ridge Lady Knights know that every game could now be the final game of the year. Coach Florez has the girls prepared. Now all that’s left to do is get a good weekend of rest and prepare for what should be one of the best girls high school soccer games of the year!
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.
