January 22, 2024
Umatilla High School Sophomore Herva Brutus Our Female Athlete of The Week
By Kyle Coppola
Umatilla High School Sophomore Herva Brutus Our Female Athlete of The Week
The Umatilla Girls Basketball team is having the best season in school history. The Lady Bulldogs success is attributed to so many factors, from a second-year coach to a great group of girls and a faculty that has emphasized the importance of athletics, especially girls’ athletics in recent years.
The Lady Bulldogs are led by sophomore #11 Herva Brutus who is averaging 15 points per game. She has been outstanding this season and is one of the best players in all Lake & Sumter County!
(Herva Brutus going in for a layup. Brutus has been stellar all season long.)
Herva is not just good, she is dominant. Among her averaging over 15 points per game, Herva is also averaging nearly 14 rebounds per game. That has afforded her team the opportunity to transition the ball and get points on the other end of the basket. Even if they have a player miss, Herva is usually right under the basket.
She is a master at boxing out. She is very strong for a sophomore and excels in this category. But perhaps what she is best at is stealing the ball from opposing players. Herva has a team high 88 total steals this year and is approaching 100 steals in a season.
(Herva Brutus in transition down the floor. One of her strongest abilities is to play defensively. She is approaching 100 steals on the season.)
Defensively Herva has 32 blocks which leads the team by more than half. She gets help from seniors #3 Emalee Duncan who is averaging 10 points per game and #2 Lauren Archer who is averaging around 8 points per game. The Umatilla girls starting lineup has been working well collectively as a unit this season. Perhaps its the best group they have ever had and the girls have won eight games in a row.
(Herva Brutus is not afraid to drive to the lane. This allows her to draw contact and get to the free throw line.)
Currently the Lady Bulldogs are 15-2 on the season. Last year Umatilla finished 13-8 and the Lady Dogs will finish with the most number of wins in a season in school history. This season they are setting the bar high for future the future of the program.
Herva Brutus is ranked as the #1 player in Class 4A District 6 in Steals, Double Doubles, Rebounds, Steals, and ranked 4th in assists. Just an absolutely dominant performance by an Umatilla girls basketball athlete and one of the single best performances in a season we have ever seen at Umatilla High School for girls basketball.
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.
