By Kyle Coppola
Eustis High School Softball One Step Away From State Semifinals!
Eustis Softball picked up a dominating 7-2 win against Lake Wales last night. Eustis looked as good as they had all season long. Lake Wales came in with a decent team, but Eustis gave them a game they will never forget.
Katie Short had a big night at the plate with 2 runs scored, 2 hits, and an RBI. Taylor Goff also scored 2 runs with Ciara Maple, Brook Powhida, and Adrianna Covino scoring RBIs for the team.
(Ciara Maple is committed to FAMU. She is a terrific base runner. She leads the team in steals with 39 total. She has 5 triples, 30 RBI’s 42 hits and 42 runs scored. Ciara is batting a .483 average.)
Skylar Cloud pitched all 7 innings and looked terrific. Cloud would go on to have 8 strikeouts, giving up only 6 hits and 2 earned runs.
Now Eustis will face a very difficult opponent, Eau Gallie, on Friday evening. If you are wondering where the heck Eau Gallie is from, I had to look it up, and they are a team from Melbourne, Florida.
(Skylar Cloud steps into a throw. She has been one of the top pitchers in the state of Florida this season.)
While Eustis will be the #1 seed and will host on Friday night at 7 pm, Eau Gallie is 17-6. They are ranked as the #46 team in Florida. What is interesting is that this team pulled a big 11-1 upset against Lake Region, who was the #2 seed last evening.
This team is obviously capable of scoring runs. They even beat Rockledge in the first round 14-0.
Eustis will be facing off against Heather Rue, the pitcher for Eau Gallie. She has 78 strikeouts but also gives up quite a few walks. She has given up 41 walks. The team has played well though, as she has only surrendered 37 earned runs this year.
(Head coach Brittany Beall left stands with Brooke Mansfield. Coach Beall has built an incredible program at Eustis High School.)
For Eustis, if they can take advantage of getting on base early as they have done many times this year, they will make it very challenging for Eau Gallie as they will need to get hits off Skylar Cloud, which is no easy feat.
We should have a great Regional Final on Friday Night! It’s the final home game ever for all the seniors regardless of whether they win or lose. The next round happens at a neutral site for the state series in Clermont. We hope you can come out! Arrive early for the game because this will be a packed house on Friday evening! Go Lady Panthers!
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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.
The bottom photo is coach Tyra not coach Beall