The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Kevin Weiss

Top performances

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(Courtesy of Shannon Ledbetter)

Five-year-old Ava Ledbetter, left, and Ryan Loftis, 6, of Zephyrhills’ East Pasco Gymnastics club both earned all-around first place finishes in their age group at last month’s 2019 AAU Gymnastics National Championship in Orlando. It is both Ledbetter’s and Loftis’s first year competing in the sport. They are coached by Lisa Pitts.

Scalloping season in Pasco

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The bay harvest scallop season is returning to Pasco County this summer.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has granted the county a 10-day bay scallop harvest season that will take place the third Friday in July moving forward. This year’s season will run from July 19 through July 28.

Harvest areas include all state waters south of the Hernando-Pasco county line and north of the Anclote Key Lighthouse in northern Pinellas County, as well as all waters of the Anclote River.

Scalloping regulations and safety include the following:

  • Scallops may be collected by hand, or with a landing or dip net
  • Daily Bag Limit:2 gallons of whole bay scallops in shell or 1 pint of bay scallop meat per person; maximum of 10 gallons of whole bay scallops in shell, or half-gallon bay scallop meat per vessel
  • Commercial harvest is prohibited: recreational harvesters need a Florida saltwater fishing license to harvest bay scallops, unless they are exempt from needing a license or have a no-cost shoreline fishing license and are wading from shore to collect scallops.

For information on bay scallop harvest zones, regulations, and fishing license requirements, visit MyFWC.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/bay-scallops/.

Construction nearing on Zephyrhills tennis center

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After more than two years of planning and design, a multi-million dollar tennis center in Zephyrhills will soon break ground and become a reality.

Construction is expected to begin in August on the Sarah Vande Berg Tennis and Wellness Center, Zephyrhills deputy city manager Billy Poe said during a special June 17 council meeting on the issue.

With the project’s final engineered site plan set to be completed this month, the city then will  seek construction bids through July, Poe said.

Construction is expected to begin in August on the Sarah Vande Berg Tennis and Wellness Center, situated west of Simons Road in Zephyrhills. The $3.5 million project is expected to be complete around summer 2020. (Courtesy of City of Zephyrhills)

Site and road work also is scheduled to begin next month by another contractor at the future facility’s location, which will be situated on nearly 5 acres of land, north of Dean Dairy Road and west of Simons Road.

The timeframe for the project’s completion is around summer 2020, Poe told city council members.

“I think we’ve accounted for everything,” Poe said of the design plans.

The $3.5 million tennis facility is being funded largely through combination of state appropriations, Penny for Pasco and recreation impact fees from several new housing developments.

The project is a public-private partnership between the City of Zephyrhills and Tennis P.R.O. and its owner Pascal Collard, who will operate and manage the tennis facility. It’s a similar arrangement the city has with the East Pasco YMCA.

Renderings show 11 outdoor  tennis courts (eight clay surface, two hard surface, exhibition court), built to USTA (United States Tennis Association) standards, as well as eight pickleball courts and four padel courts.

The tennis center also includes a 7,000-square-foot indoor clubhouse that will include a fitness and rehabilitation center, restaurant and cafe, pro shop and kid’s club, among other amenities.

The facility will be open approximately 80 hours per week.

More amenities also may come on line later.

Collard told council members at some point he is looking to phase in a 30,000-square-foot multi-purpose indoor sports complex which could accommodate four tennis courts and a soccer field made of artificial turf.

Indoor sports field house aside, Collard said the tennis center will draw people from inside and outside Zephyrhills and will become a draw for various regional, national and international tournaments.

He described the facility as “a community sports center for everybody.”

“I think that to have a place like this in Zephyrhills, it’s unique,” said Collard, a professional tennis instructor and former tennis director at Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel. “If you build something like this, we do believe that a lot of people will come.”

The meeting also included a discussion of the tennis center’s membership fees, which Collard presented to the council.

An annual individual tennis-only membership is listed at $65 per month. Cheaper price points will be offered for four-person households ($120), individual seniors over 65 years old ($50) and household seniors over 65 years old ($90).

There will be a series of other annual membership packages with various levels of access (bronze, silver, gold, platinum), along with a six-month snowbird membership option to run from October through March.

A platinum membership, for instance, provides access to all courts and in-house tournaments, as well as the center’s fitness room, cryotherapy/salt room, and kid’s club. It also includes a golf membership at Silverado Golf & Country Club. An individual platinum membership (ages 17 and up) is listed at $1,999 annually, paid in full.

By comparison, an individual gold membership, which includes all amenities except golf, is $1,296 annually.

All memberships will include a one-time $250 initiation fee. However, the fee will be waived for the first 250 Zephyrhills residents to sign up for a membership.

There will be a 20 percent discount in memberships for nurses, teachers, military veterans and local and state government employees.

In addition to memberships, the tennis center will offer non-member day passes, daily guest passes and hourly court rental opportunities. It also will be used for receptions, fundraisers and other community events.

The facility also will host free tennis camps and lessons to underprivileged youth on a regular basis through its non-profit counterpart, Sarah Vande Berg Tennis Foundation.

“It’s nothing set in stone,” Collard said of the membership prices. “We can tweak it, we can change it, but it’s pretty much what is done in the U.S. and different places.”

“It reflects in the pricing that we’re really giving everybody the opportunity to benefit from this center,” he added.

The breakeven point for the facility is roughly 450 members, Collard said.

In determining membership costs, Collard and city staffers analyzed membership fees at several other tennis and athletic clubs throughout the Tampa Bay region, such as the Beerman Family Tennis Center in Lakeland and the Cindy Hummel Tennis Center in Auburndale.

“Really, our numbers were very comparable and even sometimes less,” city planning director Todd Vande Berg said of the membership fees. “We’re offering so much more, and we’re not even talking about the restaurant (inside the tennis center clubhouse), so we did take a careful look at the comparisons to make sure they were in line.”

Council members didn’t seem to have qualms about the various price points, instead expressing their eagerness for the forthcoming tennis venture.

“I’m excited about it,” councilwoman Jodi Wilkeson said. “I think about the people that I know that play tennis, that’s a great investment for them and would like to have that opportunity.”

Added councilman Lance Smith: “I think it’s a good partnership and I think we’re going to learn as we go along. I’m just anxious to get the facility going.”

Council president Ken Burgess said it’s “good timing” for the city to get a tennis center, pointing out roadway developments along State Road 54, State Road 56 and the Interstate 75-Overpass Road interchange extension to Zephyrhills.

“I think this is one more thing that’s going to put Zephyrhills on the map,” Burgess said. “I mean, I realize that probably a lot of our (tennis) members may come from not necessarily the city limits, but it’s still going to put Zephyrhills on the map. It’s a great design and I think everything’s coming together, all at the right time, too.”

The tennis center is named after the Sarah Vande Berg, a former Zephyrhills High School district champion, who died in an automobile accident at the age of 21 in October 2015. She was the daughter of longtime city planning director Todd Vande Berg.

Published June 26, 2019

Track standout

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Alyssa Hayman

Alyssa Hayman, 10, of Lutz, collected a trio of medals at the 2019 USATF Florida Association Junior Olympic Track Championships last month in Winter Park. In the 11-12 girls division, Hayman placed first in the 1,500-meter racewalk, second in the 100-meter dash, and fourth in aero javelin.

The placings qualify Hayman for USATF Region 4 Junior Olympics Championships in South Carolina next month and a chance to earn a spot at the USATF Hershey National Junior Olympic Championships in Sacramento, California.

Bishop McLaughlin gets new baseball coach

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Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School has announced Marc Eskew will be the school’s  new head varsity baseball coach.

Marc Eskew

Eskew has served as an assistant baseball coach at Bishop McLaughlin for the past three seasons, primarily serving as a hitting instructor and infield coach. He’s also worked as the school’s information technology director since 2016.

Before that, Eskew was head baseball coach at Sickles High for a year, going 7-16 during the 2015-2016 season.

Eskew takes over for Jeff Swymer, who resigned after serving six seasons as Bishop’s baseball coach and another two as the school’s athletic director.

The Hurricanes baseball program went a combined 126-43 under Swymer’s watch. That included a state tournament appearance in 2015 and a region semifinals appearance this past season.

In addition to his coaching duties at Bishop, Eskew works in the Baseball University travel baseball organization as a head coach and recruiting coordinator in the upper class division.

Huge hauls at tournament

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(Courtesy of John Medvid)

Matt Norris, left, and Tim Grimes teamed to win first place at the South Pasco Bassmasters’ (SPBM) June tournament, hauling in five bass for a total weight of 16 pounds on the Harris Chain of Lakes, in Tavares. The duo caught their haul flipping plastic worms in grass and pads. The next SPBM team tournament is set for July 20 at Lake Tarpon, in Tarpon Springs. For information, visit SouthPascoBassmasters.com.

Pasco Sheriff’s Office gets forensics K-9

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The Pasco Sheriff’s Office has added another K-9 to its unit of about two dozen — but it’s not the traditional search and seizure police dog frequently utilized by law enforcement agencies.

Instead, this dog, a 3-year-old yellow Labrador named Phi, is paired with a forensics investigator and trained to detect decomposing human remains.

Pasco Sheriff’s Office forensics investigator Heidi Sievers and K-9 partner Phi. Phi is the agency’s new human remains detection dog, believed to be the first of its kind in the Tampa Bay area. (Kevin Weiss)

More commonly known as a human remains detection dog, K-9 Phi ignores live human scent and animal scent as to indicate odors on human remains, whether it be related to crime scenes, old missing persons cases, or natural or man-made disaster events.

Phi is believed to be the only human remains detection/forensics K-9 employed by a law enforcement agency in the Tampa Bay area. He was purchased and trained through donations from service organization Phi Delta Kappa in Odessa.

Pasco Sheriff Cpl. Jimmy Hall heads up the agency’s new forensic K-9 unit.

The unit is modeled after the FBI’s dog scent program, and Hall said it takes the concept of cadaver dogs to a new level in identifying and solving crime scenes.

That’s because Phi and similarly trained dogs don’t just search for bodies. They also identify the presence of trace amounts of human bones, bodily fluids and decomposing material — whether buried underground, underwater, smeared on a car or elsewhere.

“We’re bringing these dogs to search these trace amounts, which is really the difference that’s not being done out there,” Hall said.

Phi has received roughly 12 weeks of in-house operational training. He also gets weekly maintenance training.

In learning to train forensics dogs, Hall and sheriff’s office personnel visited the FBI’s training academy in Virginia.

In essence, forensics dogs like Phi are trained like bomb or drug-sniffing dogs, where they’re rewarded for being able to identify a particular targeted odor, Hall said.

“We saw what they had and how they use the dogs, and got some great ideas from them,” Hall said.

Hall noted during that trip, trained forensics dogs were able to indicate odor on a pre-Civil War gravesite. “I not necessarily would’ve believed that if I wasn’t there watching it myself,” Hall said.

The greatest benefit of a forensics K-9, Hall said, is helping investigators to conduct more thorough evidence gathering outside the realm of a primary crime scene, or where the crime actually occurred.

K-9 Officer Phi undergoes a regular training session with his handler. The K-9 is trained to detect human remains related to crime scenes, old missing persons cases, natural or man-made disasters and more. (Courtesy of Pasco Sheriff’s Office)

The law enforcement explained: “If we’ve got a crime scene at a house, we can deploy the dog starting a block out if we want to, and it’s possible to find evidence for that crime…that we would’ve never come across.

“If you’re going to put 15 to 20 detectives and forensic investigators out to comb an area, they’re limited by sight. We can put this dog down and the odor is going to be much more powerful, and we can cover a larger area with that.”

Phi’s handler, forensics investigator Heidi Sievers, echoed that significance.

“We have only the ability of our sight and also some other technological tools that we have,” said Sievers, who has been partnered with Phi since March. “This is just one more check and balance to make sure that we’re covering the entirety of the scene.”

So far, Phi has been deployed about 20 times by the sheriff’s office and other agencies needing assistance. He’s done three deployments with Sievers.

The dog has been the sheriff’s office for about a year. He previously worked in different capacities with other handlers.

Besides assisting the forensics unit, Phi has also become a welcome addition to the Sievers’ household.

The forensics investigator had never owned a dog before, but Phi quickly developed a bond within her household.

“I have a daughter so she loves him, so it’s been really nice,” Sievers said. “He’s easy, he’s great, low maintenance. He’s very friendly. He just lives to run and work.”

Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office will soon add another human detection K-9 to its unit, for investigator Sue Miller. A third dog of its type is being utilized by an agency volunteer, as well.

As well as assisting with crime solving, the agency believes the forensic K-9 unit will eventually help in another area.

“This is something we know will also add to our recruitment,” Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said. “The fact that people want this opportunity to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be able to have a canine,’ that is very unique.”

Published June 19, 2019

Zephyrhills plans for future industrial hub

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The City of Zephyrhills is developing a master plan aimed at increasing high-wage industrial jobs and boosting the region’s economy.

Called the Zephyrhills Industrial Corridor Plan, it focuses on a large grouping of industrial properties and adjacent areas within the Chancey Road corridor, near the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport.

The City of Zephyrhills is developing a master plan aimed at increasing high-wage industrial jobs and benefits. The proposed Zephyrhills Industrial Corridor plan is long-range in nature, geared at guiding growth and development for the next 20 years or so. (Courtesy of City of Zephyrhills)

The proposed master plan industrial project is long-range in nature, geared at guiding growth and development for the next 20 years or so.

Details of the preliminary plan were shared by urban planning consultant Tammy Vrana at a June 10 city council meeting.

The planning area is generally bound by Melrose Avenue to the north, the CSX Transportation railroad and U.S. 301 to the west, Pattie Road to the south, and Barry Road and the Upper Hillsborough Wildlife Management Area to the east.

It encompasses approximately 9.76 square miles (6,248 acres), including 33 percent within Zephyrhills and the remainder in unincorporated Pasco County, representing the largest aggregation of industrial lands in Pasco.

According to the draft plan, about 1,630 acres of that has already been designated for industrial land use, and another 215 acres for commercial. About 631 acres consists of existing residential property.

Two CSX mainline railroads traverse the area, the plan shows, accessible to Port Tampa Bay and the CSX Central Florida Intermodal Logistics Center.

The Zephyrhills Municipal Airport, a general aviation airport, also is located in the heart of the plan area, which can accommodate needs of business travelers.

In her presentation, Vrana underscored the need for Zephyrhills to begin planning now for industrial development, and finding ways to identify and recruit employment-generating manufacturing companies.

“There’s no better way to growing your middle class,” Vrana said, “than having good paying, industrial jobs.

“It diversifies your economy, so you’re not relying on just a couple of industries segments, and that way you’re better able to weather economic cycles,” she said.

Vrana explained an industrial corridor would help bring in dollars from outside the community, which she said in turn creates more business activity within local shops, restaurants and so on.

Shown here is the planning area for the Zephyrhills Industrial Corridor, generally bound by Melrose Avenue to the north, the CSX Transportation railroad and U.S. 301 to the west, Pattie Road to the south, and Barry Road and the Upper Hillsborough Wildlife Management Area to the east. It encompasses approximately 9.76 square miles (6,248 acres), including 33 percent within Zephyrhills and the remainder in unincorporated Pasco County.

“The revenues that you get from sales tax and property taxes…those things go to pay for your public services and amenities that are enjoyed by the entire community,” said Vrana.

Vrana stressed the need for the city to form partnerships with the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to create a “beltway” network of four-lane roads and more roadway connectivity to the interstate system. Investing in other infrastructure and operational improvements to reduce congestion and increase the efficiency of freight movement are needed, too, she said.

Quality of infrastructure is typically the top criteria for companies in deciding to relocate or move to a particular area, the consultant noted.

Vrana told the council: “You need to consider hard infrastructure, the things that you typically think about, but also those soft infrastructure assets such as education, public-private partnerships and just simple networking opportunities for community businesses.”

Vrana went on to identify potential opportunities for commercial development and placemaking around State Road 39 and Chancey Road.

She said that area could be utilized for retail, hotel, gas station and more. It also can incorporate some recreational accents, perhaps an extreme bike course and walking trails “to make the area a little bit nicer for walking, shopping, and as a workplace,” Vrana said.

“Just because it’s an industrial area doesn’t mean that it can’t look nice, that it can’t be spruced up, and have some nice trees and landscaping,” Vrana said.

The city’s industrial master plan is being funded through a technical assistance grant from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

The planning process for the master plan began in January. That included gathering relevant information and organizing a series of workshops, stakeholder’s meetings and open houses.

Vrana said next steps for the drafted plan include sketching up detailed conceptual layouts “and just look at the different things the city and its partners can do to increase business in this area.”

Additional opportunities for public input will be offered in late summer following development of plan illustrations and other refinements based on community feedback.

“I think that we all recognize the importance Zephyrhills of the industrial corridor brings us,” council president Ken Burgess said. “I’ve attended some of those workshops and meetings, and they’re very informative. And, there’s a lot of great discussion and feedback that I’ve seen, and I like the way the goals tie not into not just when you think about an industrial corridor, but the entire city and education, and all that.”

Councilman Lance Smith also voiced his approval of the industrial corridor initiative, but believes the city also must find ways to maintain its small-town vibe in the face of growth.

Smith put it like this: “I mean, I love going out to Wesley Chapel, but I would never live there, O.K. It’s a wonderful place to visit, but I like out downtown, I like our small town charm.”

Published June 19, 2019

Pioneer Museum gets new exhibits

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Visitors to the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village now will be able to see an up-close look at how blacksmiths and woodworkers mastered their crafts as settlers back in the 1800s and 1900s.

Guests will be able to glimpse the tools used back then — whether the craftsmen were pulling forge bellows and shaping hot steel, or operating a foot-powered treadle lathe and turning wood.

The ribbon cutting ceremony and dedication took place outside the new Paul Rhinesmith Wood Wright shop. (Christine Holtzman)

The museum, located at 15602 Pioneer Museum Road in Dade City, recently added a full-fledged blacksmith shop and wood wright shop to its extensive collection of reenactment building exhibits.

The new shops were officially unveiled at a dedication ceremony last month at the museum property.

Materials and hand tools for both shops were donated by Paul Rhinesmith, a longtime museum demonstrator and trustee. Both exhibits were named for him.

The new additions took about a year to complete and furnish — as well as replicate something seen at the turn of the century, said Pioneer Museum board president Seth Mann.

Wood Wright Bill Holmes, of San Antonio, demonstrates how he uses a ripping saw to cut reclaimed lumber that will be used to make wood boxes. The wood for this project comes from the porch of a historic log cabin in Lacoochee, that will soon be moved to the museum property.

Previously, the museum didn’t have any actual working forge or wood wright shop, so smaller blacksmith and woodsmith demonstrations would take place at the museum’s Mabel Jordan Barn, which houses collections of early farm equipment, vintage buggies and carriages.

So, for Mann and other trustees, the new shops make for “a beautiful addition” to the 20-acre museum property that houses an old schoolhouse, a church, an original settler’s home, a general store, a shoe repair shop, a citrus packing house, a train depot and more.

The blacksmith shop measures 24-by-24 feet and the wood wright shop is 24-by-32 feet.

The museum acquired Dade City road bricks to put in the floor of the blacksmith shop, and used beams from one of the railroads, in the building.

Blacksmith Lewis Riggleman bangs on a piece of hot, mild steel, in order to shape it into a nail. The steel becomes malleable at 1,000 degrees, allowing Riggleman to pound it into shape.

The wood wright shop, meanwhile, contains cypress wood from the porch of a historic log cabin in Lacoochee, that soon will be moved to the museum property.

“We try to show people what the businesses looked like,” Mann said. “In historic Pasco, the carpentry shop and the blacksmith shop would’ve been major businesses downtown.”

The museum couldn’t survive without donations from community members, such as the Rhinesmith family, Mann said.

“Most of the buildings and exhibits we have here are contributed, even the land was contributed,” the museum board president said. “It takes the volunteers to come out here and work, the board members, the trustees — we all have to work to try to make the museum a success.”

Marilynn Ory, of Wesley Chapel, left, and her husband, Richard, admire the handmade wooden boxes and tools on display in the new wood wright shop. The Orys are both volunteers with the museum.

Rhinesmith, 86, suffers from a rare eye disease and lives in an assisted living facility in Zephyrhills.

But, he and his family were at the dedication ceremony.

His son, Phillip Rhinesmith, said the longtime volunteer dreamed of the museum having standalone blacksmith and woodworking shops when he did demonstrations in the 1990s and the 2000s, up until he began losing his eyesight.

“He knew he wouldn’t be able to demonstrate but still wanted to be able to show his support and donate to the museum,” Phillip Rhinesmith said.

Phillip Rhinesmith said boxes upon boxes of hand tools donated were collected or handmade by his father over many decades.

That includes an extensive collection of rare, vintage Stanley woodworking planes the elder Rhinesmith crafted himself for various projects.

The Paul Rhinesmith Wood Wright Shop

“Everything he built, there were no power tools, no sandpaper, no nails. Everything was friction fit together,” Phillip Rhinesmith said. “He knew if he needed a specific tool for a job, he would copy old designs out of old books and build the planes himself. It’s pretty incredible.”

The son added, “The legacy that he leaves with his tools here, most his collection, it means a lot to the family to be a part of this community.”

Bill Holmes is a new volunteer docent at the wood wright shop and a veteran carpenter.

The Paul Rhinesmith Blacksmith Shop

He said many of Rhinesmith’s donated tools, like a foot-powered treadle lathe, are so rare that he’s only seen them in books or on television.

“The guy was such a craftsman to get this together, to be able to use this stuff,” Holmes said. “All these tools, they’re still in impeccable shape. I can still use them today. A lot of times when you see these tools they’re so beat up, but these are impeccable working pieces.”

Fellow volunteer docent Steve Melton, who helps operate the blacksmith shop, was likewise impressed with Rhinesmith’s collection of donated hand tools, calling them “the real deal.”

Melton added both shops — and the many the items in them — are important for educating schoolchildren that visit the museum each year.

“This introduces to them a lot of the heritage arts,” Melton said, “and so it is just a remarkable addition to this community.”

To learn more about the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village, visit PioneerFloridaMuseum.org.

Published June 19, 2019

Lexi Kilfoyl named Florida’s best — again

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One of area’s most dominant softball players ever has again proved she’s tops in the entire Sunshine State.

Academy at the Lakes (AATL) senior pitcher Lexi Kilfoyl has been named 2019 Gatorade Florida Softball Player of the Year, given to the state’s best softball player, regardless of classification.

Academy at the Lakes senior Lexi Kilfoyl repeated as Gatorade Florida Softball Player of the Year. (File)

When it comes to receiving the notable distinction, the Wildcats star is on familiar ground.

The 6-foot-2 right-handed ace and first base slugger won the award last year, too, making her just the third two-time winner from the state, joining Dunnellon’s Kasey Fagan (2009-10) and Spruce Creek’s Kelsi Dunne (2006-07). Kilfoyl is the only Pasco County softball player to have ever won the award.

The Gatorade State Player of the Year award was established in 1985 “to recognize the nation’s most outstanding high school student-athletes for their athletic excellence, academic achievement and exemplary character.”

The program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross-country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one national player of the year in each sport.

The honor is surely deserved for Kilfoyl, who’s set to join the University of Alabama softball program on scholarship this fall.

Equipped with a powerful arm and bat, Kilfoyl buoyed Academy at the Lakes to a 19-7 mark and its second straight FHSAA (Florida High School Athletic Association) Class 2A state title last month in Vero Beach.

In the May 21 state championship game — an 11-0 shutout over Mount Dora Christian Academy — Kilfoyl fired a six-inning no-hitter with 10 strikeouts in the circle, and drove in two runs and scored another on two hits at the plate.

Kilfoyl also pitched a one-hit, nine strikeout complete game shutout in the Class 2A semifinals win over Palatka Penel Baptist Academy, while adding in four runs on two hits of her own.

The state finals were a microcosm of sorts for Kilfoyl’s senior campaign and her entire Wildcats career, for that matter.

She registered a 14-1 record with a 0.48 ERA, striking out 134 batters in 72.2 innings pitched, while allowing just 15 hits in 2019. She also produced the best hitting season of her varsity career, posting a .563 batting average with 12 home runs and 37 RBIs, compiling a .653 on-base percentage and a 1.188 slugging percentage.

Making it all the more impressive: Kilfoyl did it all while nursing a trapezius strain, which forced her to abstain from pitching for about a month in the middle of the season.

Because of that, Kilfoyl actually wasn’t expecting to repeat as state player of the year.

“It definitely was kind of a shocker,” Kilfoyl said, “because my pitching stats weren’t the greatest compared to other pitchers that had that month to get their stats up that much more, so I definitely was very surprised and it almost felt very relieving to know that missing one month can’t kill you.”

What Kilfoyl may have lacked in total innings pitched, she more than made up for with the bat, notching career highs in virtually every statistical category.

The month of pitching missed allowed her to better fine-tune her approach at the plate, she said.

“I think because hitting was mainly the only thing I could do, that was my main focus, and I think definitely had something to do with it,” Kilfoyl said, of her batting numbers.

The 2019 season puts a bow on what’s been a lengthy varsity career at AATL, one that began when Kilfoyl was in the seventh grade.

In her previous five seasons combined, Kilfoyl had a 76-15 record, with a 1.13 earned run average and 842 strikeouts across 571.1 innings pitched. She also generated a .466 batting average with 17 home runs, 38 extra base hits and 129 RBIs in 104 games.

For most of her career, Kilfoyl has been widely regarded as one of the nation’s top prep pitchers and college prospects, being named the No. 5 recruit overall in the Class of 2019 by Softball America.

Kilfoyl and Land O’ Lakes High School senior pitcher Callie Turner are among just 20 athletes nationwide who’ve been selection to the 2019 USA Softball Junior Women’s National Training Team. Kilfoyl also made the junior national squad back in 2017, then the team’s youngest member as a 16-year-old sophomore.

Reflecting on her prep career, Kilfoyl said: “I feel like I did accomplish everything that was possible. I definitely feel like I’ve done everything that I could, and couldn’t have done it any other way, no better way to end it.”

And, helping the AATL softball program win its first state title last year goes down as her all-time favorite moment. It was an 11-inning, rain-soaked pitcher’s duel in which the Wildcats defeated Monticello Aucilla Christian 1-0.

“Winning states last year was the most memorable,” Kilfoyl said. “The game was such neck-and-neck, and we didn’t know if we were going to win.”

Kilfoyl, who also was a standout volleyball and basketball at AATL, isn’t the only high-profile athlete in her family, remarkably.

Her older brother, Darin, is a 6-foot-8 right-handed pitcher at Division I University of North Florida. He previously starred on the baseball diamond at AATL and St. Johns River State College. Their younger brother, Andrew, is a rising junior offensive lineman at Gaither High School, who is already garnering Division I interest as a 6-foot-5, 275-pound left tackle. Andrew transferred to Gaither after earning All-State honors in the eight-man football ranks at AATL each of the last two seasons.

Kilfoyl said the family regularly works out together, challenging one another for athletics accomplishments.

“We definitely push each other,” Kilfoyl said, “but then there is also kind of a little bit of competitive side to us, like, ‘Oh I did this better than you,’ just how like siblings are.”

Lexi Kilfoyl – 2019 stats

Pitching: 72.2 innings pitched, 12-1 record, 0.48 ERA, 134 strikeouts, 15 walks, .061 batting average against, .122 on-base percentage against

Batting: .562 batting average, 12 home runs, 12 doubles, 37 RBI, 21 runs, 45 hits, .653 on-base percentage, 1.187 slugging percentage

Published June 19, 2019