By Kyle Coppola
Wildwood Girls Basketball Look for State Championship or Bust
You know what they say: third time’s the charm, right? For Wildwood, there can be no denying the fact that they could be looking at a third championship run in a row. In the past two years, the Wildwood girls’ basketball team has reached the championship game in Lakeland but has lost in the state championship game two years in a row.
So what makes this team different this year? This year’s team has heart and soul like we have never seen. They are playing with aggression and passion that previous teams have displayed, but for this Wildwood girls’ team, they understand what is at stake.
( #10 Narjhani Harris dribbles the ball for the Lady Wildcats.)
On Friday night, Wildwood has a date with Hawthorne, a team that ended their championship dreams last year with a 42-38 win in the state finals. This year, Wildwood is looking for revenge and hoping to knock Hawthorne out of the playoffs. To do so, they will have to face one of the best teams in Class 1A.
(Trinidy Harris goes in for a layup during a recent contest against MDCA.)
Hawthorne comes in ranked as the #4 seed, while Wildwood is ranked as the #1 seed. Meanwhile, you have Ponce De Leon on the other side of the bracket, who will be facing Graceville. If Wildwood and Ponce De Leon win, that would set up a rematch of the 2022 State Championship game, which Ponce De Leon won by 1 point over Wildwood.
Ponce De Leon and Graceville play at 1 pm on Friday, while Wildwood and Hawthorne play at 3 pm. Wildwood comes in with perhaps one of the best players in Trinidy Harris, who is averaging 17 points per game. She gets help from senior Essiance Jasper and middle school student Zoe Brown, both averaging over 9 points per game.
(This is what Wildwood is after. The state championship rings. Photo Credit – Brooke Barnes.)
Hawthorne will be a tough game for Wildwood, but they can taste that championship now. The past two years, it was within grasp and just slipped away in the final seconds. Can the Lady Wildcats finish the job? We will know shortly! Come out and support on Friday afternoon if you can.
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.
