By Kyle Coppola
Eli Feld Ignites Eustis Baseball: Lake County Takes Notice
Eustis High School sophomore Eli Feld is one of the best batters in Lake County at the moment. Feld has had an absolutely monstrous start to the 2024 high school baseball season.
Currently, Feld is ranked #1 in Class 4A District 7 in runs scored with 13 so far, and he is also ranked #1 in Runs Batted In (RBIs) with 14. Feld has 13 hits along with four doubles, a triple, and a home run this year.
“Eli never lets anyone outwork him. He shows up early at practice and is the last to leave the facility. He stays to hit late and is always working on his game. He knows his role and loves his teammates. He helps anyone on the team, and his baseball IQ is off the charts,” says head coach Tony Thomas.
Feld is slashing an impressive .421 average, and he has put all of Lake County on alert for what kind of player he has become in 2024. We already knew that he was capable of great things, but he is blowing everyone’s expectations away. More than anything else, his on-base percentage (OBP) is sitting at .522, meaning that Feld gets on half the time he is at the plate.
Those statistics don’t lie and are attributed to head coach Tony Thomas and what he has brought to the program this season. Thomas has replaced Matthew Burgess as the head baseball coach as Burgess took on the athletic director position this year.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but Eli got hit by a pitch last year and broke his hand, which ended his freshman season. I have been around the sport of baseball a long time. This kid put in some of the hardest work and was one of the most motivated young men I have seen to make it back to the field. He took his rehab as a challenge, worked 24/7, and he works with his dad a lot to analyze his swing. Eli is someone who always wants to learn, and we love having him as part of our team,” says coach Thomas.
Coach Thomas is a former MiLB player and college baseball star who has been a great asset to the Eustis baseball program since being named head coach. Feld gets plenty of help from fellow senior Davin Scott who is also producing some great numbers including a .385 batting average, 15 hits, and 10 RBIs. Ledger Pleasant has scored 12 runs while Couper Gatch has contributed heavily including 14 steals, 11 hits and 11 runs scored.
Senior Devin Scott and senior Julien Radcliffe also have been terrific baserunners. Scott has 9 steals with Radcliffe comprising of 8 steals for a total of 17 steals between the two of them. They have found themselves in scoring position a lot this season.
Julien Radcliffe, Braden Barnes, and Alex Wise are the main pitchers for the Panthers this season and have done a good job so far this season. Overall, Eli Feld has easily been one of the most dominant hitters in Lake County so far this year. Eustis has a 7-5 record. The Panthers also just beat Montverde Academy 2-1 on March 15th which was a massive victory for the program. They have some tough games coming up in a few weeks including Umatilla, MDCA, Apopka, and others. Eustis High looks to be one of the front runners for Class 4A District 7 this 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.
