By Kyle Coppola
Mount Dora High Track & Field Excels at District Championships
BUSHNELL, Fla. — Mount Dora High School’s track and field teams delivered an outstanding performance at the District Championships at South Sumter High School, with the girls team earning a strong second-place finish and the boys placing fifth overall.
The Hurricanes were powered by record-breaking and first-place efforts across multiple events. Makayla Bauch set a new school record in the 400 meters, breaking her own previous mark with a time of 1:00.43. Lillian Gittens captured the district title in the javelin and extended her school record to 31.24 meters.
Reese Horbal had a dominant day, winning the long jump, triple jump, and high jump. Kate Guthrie added to the girls’ success, taking first in the pole vault and finishing second in the high jump. On the track, Anabel Celis sprinted to a second-place finish in the 200 meters, while Hannah Douglas and Cecelia Lear placed second and third, respectively, in the 3200 meters. Sabrina Vo earned a silver medal in the shot put.
Mount Dora’s girls 4×100 relay team narrowly missed breaking the oldest girls track record in school history — set in 1980 — finishing just 0.13 seconds short and securing second place. The girls also finished third in both the 4×400 and 4×800 relays.
(The Mount Dora boys program finished a respectable 5th place at districts.)
The boys’ team had plenty of highlights of its own. Kris Kupinski won the pole vault, while Zyshonne Perry took second in the long jump. Jarom Nichols earned a second-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles, and Tristan Lorentz placed third in the javelin. All of the boys’ relay teams finished among the top three.
Coach Adkinson praised the team’s performance, saying, “Congrats to all our athletes — way to represent!”
The Hurricanes now look ahead to regional competition with confidence and momentum.
Photo Credit – Mount Dora High School
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.
