May 10, 2024
Mount Dora Christian Academy Baseball Gears Up for FHSAA Regional Semifinal
By Kyle Coppola
Mount Dora Christian Academy Baseball Gears Up for FHSAA Regional Semifinal
The Mount Dora Christian Academy Baseball team is gearing up for their Class 2A FHSAA Regional Semifinal matchup against Lakeland Christian on Saturday night at 7 p.m. For this group of MDCA athletes, they are hoping to extend their season and come into the game as the underdogs.
But don’t tell MDCA that. This team has played equally as well as Lakeland Christian. Both teams come in with nearly identical records. Lakeland Christian is the #1 seed and MDCA is the #4 seed.
(Junior Ethan Priest has been having a stellar year for MDCA on the pitchers mound.)
For MDCA to win, they will need to get the bats going early. Cael Reish has been stellar for MDCA this year with a .366 average. He leads the team with 37 hits. He also has 20 RBIs and 30 runs scored which also leads the team. Meanwhile, Bryan Schutte and Justin Earle have also been fantastic at the plate, as has Ethan Koller and Easton Workman who have put in plenty of work.
On the mound, it’s been Ethan Priest and Jordan Livingston who have been lighting it up for MDCA. Priest has 67 strikeouts and Livingston has 61. Livingston is just a sophomore and is a very exciting young prospect. Ethan Priest pitched 7 innings earlier this week in a complete game for MDCA, throwing 8 strikeouts against Foundation Academy.
(Jacob Hair has been equally impressive as a sophomore. Hair has a .348 batting average with 16 hits and 18 RBIs along with 14 runs scored.)
If Priest gets the start again on Saturday, Lakeland Christian better look out. Lakeland Christian comes in as the #21 ranked team in all of Florida. They have Carson Martin as their starting pitcher who is a junior. Martin has 69 strikeouts this season and has been deadly on the mound with a 2.0 ERA through 11 games.
MDCA will have a difficult time hitting against Martin, but this MDCA team will be among the best batters he will face all season long. Lakeland also has one of Florida’s best sophomore batters with Gavin Byrd. Byrd is averaging a monstrous .451 at the plate. He has 41 hits and 39 RBIs. He has also scored 27 runs and has 7 home runs.
(MDCA recently won the District Championship trophy.)
Overall, MDCA will have their work cut out for them in this contest. If they can weather the storm early on and settle into the game, there should be chances for them. Especially if they can get some runners on base early in the game, it could lead to an upset.
We look forward to this contest this weekend! Go Bulldogs!
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.
