LAKE PLACID — Marilyn Jones just shook her head, smiled and wondered aloud when she'd see her team play a complete game this season. "They hit the ball for one inning and then take the rest of the game off," said the LP head coach, who watched her Green Dragons fall 13-3 to All-Saints Academy in a six-inning mercy-rule game on Friday. Lake Placid has struggled all season with consistency at the plate and in the field, but they've managed to show glimpses of the potential that their coach knows they have. "We've got some talent out there," Jones said. "We just have a hard time pulling all that talent together, and we always seem to hang our heads once we dig ourselves into a hole." That hole came in the first inning, when a pair of errors in the infield turned into four runs, including a three-run bomb over the left-field fence by Ashton Brice that gave the Saints a 4-0 lead just moments into the game. ...more

February 23, 2008

SEBRING — Taking advantage of your opponents' mistakes is the mark of a winning team. Sebring used a pair of DeSoto errors to turn a tight game into a rout with a 10-run second inning, and senior center fielder Kyle Long had four RBI to lead the Blue Streaks to a 13-1 victory over DeSoto in a Class 4A-District 10 contest on Friday night at Firemen's Field. Senior Adam Simmons picked up the win by allowing just one hit to go with six strikeouts in five innings in a game that was called because of the 10-run mercy rule. "I used my curveball to set up my fastball," said the Blue Streak right-hander. "I settled down after the first inning and once we got the lead, I just threw strikes. ...more

February 23, 2008

Plant's offense finally clicked Friday night the way baseball coach Dennis Braun knew it could, and the Panthers happened to break out against one of their biggest rivals. ...more

February 23, 2008

Terriers Chew Up Green Dragons MOORE HAVEN — Maribel Garza scored on a fielder's choice to give the visiting Green Dragons a two-run advantage, but the Moore Haven Terriers responded with a flurry of runs over the next four innings to pummel Lake Placid 12-2 in the 10-run mercy-rule, five-inning affair. ...more

February 22, 2008

LAKE PLACID — Lee Tolar shook his head in awe of his girls' performance, and summed up his Sebring softball team in a nutshell. "We're only going to get better," the Blue Streak skipper said. Sebring, who methodically dismantled a gutsy Lake Placid squad in a 15-1 mercy-rule victory on Thursday, is already playing at a tournament level, and they're doing it without three key members of the team (Priscilla Adams, Chelsea Davis and Hannah Shoop). "It's nice to see that we're not getting off to a slow start," Tolar said. "These girls were just ready to play tonight. They're tired of practice and wanted to play. "We're hitting well, playing solid defense. Everything is on course, but we've got a good test in Frostproof coming up. We're just ready to go." ...more

February 9, 2008

AVON PARK — Missy Lander thinks the 2008 Avon Park softball team has a chance to make history. If Tuesday's throttling of Booker was any indication, she might be on to something. ...more

February 7, 2008

Break out the umbrellas for rain, and the white flags for Tiger Woods. ...more

January 27, 2008

GIRLS SOCCER TOP-SEEDED COBRAS BREEZE PAST LEOPARDS ...more

January 20, 2008

When a team is a heavy underdog in soccer, there are several approaches on how to play against them. ...more

January 20, 2008

PALMETTO — If the Avon Park girls soccer team wanted a blueprint of where they want to evolve in the coming years, they need only take a good look at the machine that is the Palmetto Tigers. The top-seeded Tigers pounced on the Red Devils from the onset, scoring seven minutes into the game and not letting up until they'd walked away with an 8-0 mercy-rule victory over the No. 4 seed Avon Park in the semifinals of the Class 4A-District 10 tournament at Harllee Stadium on Tuesday. Palmetto were methodical in its attack and used precision passing to systematically dismantle the Red Devil defense, showing the obvious differences in skill level. ...more

January 17, 2008