By Kyle Coppola
Eustis High Softball Team Off To Historic Start Of 2024 Season
The Eustis Softball team is off to a historic start to their season. In the first two games of the year, the Eustis Softball team has scored an incredible 43 runs, only surrendering 8 runs to their opponents. They beat Taylor 22-7 and New Smyrna Beach 21-1. This is the best start to a season in Eustis High School history in terms of runs scored. It was not that long ago that Eustis was being outscored by about the same margin, but they were on the losing side of those games. The 2009 season saw the Lady Panthers give up 38 runs in their first two games of the season. We have come a long way since those days as the Eustis Softball program is one of the most well respected in Lake County.
(Eustis is now one of the most feared softball teams in Lake County. Photo Credit – Joe Ott Photography “Fan Zone”)
Safe to say that the program has been completely turned around in the past decade, and that is due to head coach Brittany Beall and a great team of coaches and athletic directors who have steered the Lady Panthers back to greatness. Beall, in particular, has been a huge reason for the success of Eustis, with her teaching methods and ability to get the most out of her players. Eustis has become one of the best softball programs in Lake County.
It has been a total team effort. From pitching to batting to baserunning, Eustis has been unrivaled so far. Ciera Maple leads the team with 6 runs scored. Meanwhile, Gabby Hiles leads the team in RBIs with 7. Jensen Luke and Lillie Smith have also contributed heavily to begin the season.
(Ciera Maple is one of the best all around players in Lake County. She is committed to the FAMU Rattlers for the 2025 season.)
This is historic territory for Eustis High. Going back in the stat book, we cannot find a better start to the season in school history in the modern era for the softball program. The modern era includes statistics presented by Max Preps and only dates to around 2007 online. If there was a pre-modern softball team that had a better start before online stats were made public in 2007, please let us know in the comments.
For the Eustis Lady Panthers, we know this team is going to be special. They have all the ingredients to make a run for a district championship and potentially a deep run in the FHSAA Playoffs. Pitchers Carson Roden and Kailey Walker have impressed. While they have not faced serious competition, they are having a good start to the year which bodes well for later this season when the competition gets tougher.
(One thing is for certain. The 2024 Eustis Softball season is shaping up to be one of the best in school history. Photo Credit – Eustis Lady Panthers Softball.)
We have to give a big shoutout to Eustis High School for putting emphasis not only on academics but on sports, especially girls’ sports. It warms my heart to see girls’ programs getting the love they so rightfully deserve. This is something that Lake & Sumter County have worked hard on the past few decades, getting the girls’ high school sports programs on an equal playing field as boys’ sports. I think this has been successfully accomplished. While there is still plenty of work to do, it shows that when you get the right group of people for boys or girls’ sports, good things can and will happen. Eustis High is a testament to that.
We will be watching the Eustis High season with great interest. ?? #EustisSoftball #HistoricStart #PantherPride
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.
