May 1, 2024
South Lake Softball Demolishes Evans 27-1 Advancing To District Championship
By Kyle Coppola
South Lake Softball Demolishes Evans 27-1 Advancing To District Championship
The South Lake High School Softball team put a beating on Evans High School 27-1 and will host the Class 6A District 9 Championship Game on Thursday evening at 7 p.m Evans took an early 1-0 lead but 19 runs scored by South Lake in the bottom of the 1st sealed the deal before the 2nd inning could even begin. Reagan Randolph had 3 RBI’s. Makiah Palacio and Leila Bolden also had 3 RBIs. Destiny Johns had a home run that drove in 2 runs. Most of the South Lake team scored 2 runs with Hailey Bronson leading the Eagles with 3 runs scored. It was a total team effort offensively and Evans had no answers. Another 8 run inning in the 2nd made the score 27-1. The game would end due to mercy rules in the 3rd.
The Lady Eagles will go up against a familiar foe, Lake Minneola, with whom the South Lake High School Eagles have split a season series. Lake Minneola won 8-5 on February 26th, while South Lake would win 10-1 on April 12th. The two now face off once more as they look to claim the District Championship. Lake Minneola is coming off of a 6-0 win against Wekiva to have earned the spot in the District Championship.
Both teams now set their sights on winning the district championship. South Lake High is looking for their third district championship in a row. The Eagles have been riding high off the bats of junior Lillyan Land, who leads the team with 36 hits and 27 RBIs. Seniors Emma George and Destiny Johns have 32 hits apiece and have driven in 18 RBIs this season. Sophomore Leila Bolden has also contributed heavily.
Jessica Merk, who is a senior, has scored a team-high 30 runs this season along with 31 hits and 20 RBIs. She also has 7 doubles on the year. This is a very exciting team and Lake.
On the pitching side, Junior Marissa Weaver has paced the South Lake Eagles with 131 innings pitched. She has 50 strikeouts. Sophomore Makiah Palacia has also contributed with 73 innings pitched. She has 28 strikeouts. Both pitchers have around a 3.00 ERA. If South Lake can hold Lake Minneola to under 4 runs and let their bats go to work, they have a good shot at winning the game.
In order to keep up with the offensive firepower South Lake has, Lake Minneola will need their freshman pitcher Kaydence Schutte to have a big game. Schutte has been exciting to watch this year. She has pitched 69.2 innings and has 53 strikeouts. She currently has a 5.33 ERA. Lake Minneola will be counting on her to throw her best game of the year.
This is going to shape up to be an amazing District Championship game. We hope to see the community come out and support these two programs on Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
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.
