Bradford a winner at Boone
The wins keep piling up for Boone softball under the guidance of head coach
The Braves (10-3) won 11-1 in five innings against visiting Cypress Creek last week to give Bradford the 500th win of her career.
Every one of those victories was scored for Boone, the school Bradford graduated from in 1983.
A commemorative banner was unfurled on the field afterward in front of a crowd that included former Boone players and Orange County athletic director formerly Boone’s A.D.
“She does an awful lot for this school outside of being a great teacher and being a fantastic softball coach, so for her to get [win No. 500] here is great,” current Boone A.D.
said. “She’s always visible and she’s always around. That loyalty that she has to Boone really stands out to the kids.”
Bradford, who was inducted into the Boone athletic hall of fame in 2004, has a 500-208-1 record in 26 seasons at the school. She is the second softball coach in coverage area history to reach 500 career wins.
Former Trinity Prep coach holds the record with 634 wins from 1984-2014.
A three-sport athlete in high school, Bradford played four years at Stetson before returning to Boone as a JV coach in 1988.
She took over the varsity in 1992 and has suffered just one losing campaign while winning at least 20 games in a season 16 times. The Braves, state runnersup in 2002, have 12 district titles on her watch, including seven in a row (2001-07).
Lake grader
made a big splash at last week’s IMG Academy Invitational — on the statemeet track in Bradenton.
She won the girls 1,600-meter run in a career-best and area-leading time of five minutes, 2.29 seconds and anchored a Patriots 4x800 relay that ran to victory in a time of 9:25.94 that is Florida’s fastest this season.
Klingenberg also has the area’s fastest 800 time (2:15.95) of 2017 and placed third at that distance.
Klinengberg has won all four of her 1,600 races this season while shaving nearly 16 seconds off the time she ran to win the Seminole County Middle School Championships a year ago.
Several area athletes scored big at the loaded
Invitational in Brantley ninth Jacksonville. Evans senior
won both the boys 100 in a time of 10.61 seconds and long jump with a 22-10 mark. Oak Ridge junior
won the girls triple jump with a mark of 39-feet, 1½-inch . That career-best performance bounced her into the area all-time top 10 list. Evans senior
ran 2017 state No. 2 times for both the 100 hurdles (14.08 seconds) and 300 hurdles (42.66) to finish second in both finals. She was state champ in the 300s and third in the 100s a year ago.
Winter Springs pole vaulter
won with an 11-feet, 11¾-inches clearance that leads the state. Winter Park senior
is second on that list at 11-1¾. senior Ocoee sophomore
had a big day as the streaking Knights (11-1) swept a doubleheader in their own spring break invitational baseball tournament on Monday.
He delivered a walkoff seventh inning single in an 8-7 win in the opener vs. Lyman, then pitched a complete game one-hitter with nine strikeouts in a 2-0 shutout of East River.
Hall had four hits and three stolen bases in the two games as Ocoee equaled its win total from last season with more than half of its regular season schedule still to come.
Oviedo’s girls soccer squad, which went 22-0-1 and won its fourth state large-class championship in a span of seven seasons, earned a No. 5 ranking in the Soccer Coaches Association of America national rankings for the winter season.
No. 1 on that list was Florida Class 1A champ Orange Park St. John’s Country Day (21-0-0), which is on a 57-match unbeaten streak.
Montverde Academy’s boys, who finished 20-0-1 to extend their string of seven consecutive undefeated seasons, again finished on top of the boys national list.
The name of Timber Creek senior
was misspelled on Sunday’s boys basketball All-Area honorable mention list.