By Kyle Coppola
Mount Dora Cross-Country Team Caps Off Big Week
The Mount Dora Cross-Country team capped off a big week of action at the 24th annual Flrunners invitational to cap off homecoming week. The girls came in ranked 26th but despite the ranking they ended up placing 12th out of 36 teams that qualified for the race of champions.
The race included the fastest teams in the state and included teams from South Carolina and Georgia. Noelle Vu finished in 13th place while Hannah Douglas finished in 30th respectively. They were followed by teammates Bailey Roman, Lilliana Vu, Cecilia Zagorini, Angelina Lebron, and Belle Orser.
(Noelle Vu left stands with Hannah Douglas right. Vu would end up finishing 13th and Douglas finished in 30th.)
The boys team also had a great showing at the competition. The boys raced in the unseeded division coming in ranked 6th and placed 2nd as a team allowing them to take home the team trophy for the division. They were led by Donovan Spears who placed 6th, Marc Florexil who placed 16th, Gavin Douglas, Jude Aoun, Gabriel Lews, Gabriel Vazquez, Ben Stone, and Austin Brown rounded things out for the boy’s team.
(Donovan Spears placed 6th. His efforts coupled with the rest of his teammates allowed the boys team to capture 2nd place overall!)
This was a huge opportunity for all of these runners to compete against some of the best cross-country runners in the USA. Many of these runners will be competing with NCAA Division 1 programs in the coming months and years. It was awesome to see the Mount Dora Hurricanes represented so well.
(The boys team had a trumendous showing at the competition and finished 2nd overall.)
A big shout out to head coach Cody Adkinson who continues to push both the boy’s and girl’s teams to be the best that they possibly can be. I know how much work that they have been doing recently and it is so cool to see it pay off at a huge competition such as this one.
(The week capped off a fantastic Homecoming week for Mount Dora which included a parade. Here we can see a few members of the girls team proudly holding their FHSAA championship trophies in the air.)
Congratulations to all the runners and we look forward to the continued success that the 2023 season will bring. The march toward State Qualifications continues!
Photos Credit: Cody Adkinson
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.
