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New year in sports offers plenty to enjoy, experience

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As we embark on a new year, the sports world within The Laker/Lutz News coverage area promises to deliver plenty to watch and experience.

Here is a sampling of what’s ahead in 2020:

Sports and recreation in East Pasco
The year 2020 may become widely known as ‘the year’ of new sports and recreational facilities in East Pasco. Three significant sporting venues are expected to open: The Sarah Vande Berg Tennis & Wellness Center, in Zephyrhills; the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex, in Wesley Chapel; and Snowcat Ridge, in Dade City.

Each offers its own unique twist.

  • The Zephyrhills tennis center will offer 11 USTA-quality tennis courts, eight pickleball courts and four padel courts, plus an indoor fitness and rehabilitation center.
  • The 100,000-square-foot Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex figures to be a national draw for basketball, volleyball and cheerleading events, and competitions.
  • Snowcat Ridge — being marketed as Florida’s first snow park — features a 60-foot-tall and 400-foot-long real snow-covered tubing hill with a magic carpet lift, an Alpine Village, and a 10,000-square-foot snow dome.

Major sporting events coming to Pasco, Tampa Bay
Pasco County and the Tampa Bay region, as a whole, are poised to host some major sporting events in the new year.

Among the most notable in Pasco: Skydive City in Zephyrhills will host the 2020 USPA (United States Parachute Association) National Parachuting and Skydiving Championships, from Oct. 30 through Nov. 24. While the event doesn’t begin until the fall, competitors will actually be training in Zephyrhills all summer long.

Zephyrhills’ Skydive City will host the 2020 National Parachuting and Skydiving Championships in the fall. (File)

Before that, Skydive City also will host the first annual Pasco Sports Fair on Feb. 16. The free, family friendly event will feature a meet-and-greet with renowned professional athletes, plus an introduction to various sport and game offerings in Zephyrhills and Pasco County, including tennis, soccer, football, basketball, skating, skydiving, boxing, mini-golf and more. Some noted pros scheduled to be in attendance include former English Premier forward Gary Blissett, former NFL defensive end Melvin Williams, former NBA shooting guard/small forward Anthony Parker, and former Tampa Bay Rowdies head coach Stuart Campbell.

Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice will be the venue for a slew of prominent events, including the Sunshine State Figure Skating Games (May 15 to May 17), USA Hockey Adult National Championships (April 19 to April 26), and Torhs2Hot4Ice roller derby national championships (June 28 to July 9), among others.

Meantime, Pasco and north Hillsborough residents may find some interest in these big draw events throughout the Tampa Bay region:

  • 2020 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament first and second rounds on March 19 and March 21, at Amalie Arena, Tampa
  • PGA Tour Valspar Golf Championship, March 19 to March 22, at Innisbrook Resort, Palm Harbor
  • WWE Wrestlemania 36 on April 5, at Raymond James Stadium, Tampa

Saint Leo’s new sport
Saint Leo University’s new acrobatic & tumbling program will begin its inaugural season in February, which will include seven regular season matchups and three home meets.

Acrobatics & Tumbling, a discipline of USA Gymnastics, is the evolution of different forms of gymnastics and involves tumbling, tosses, and acrobatic lifts and pyramids. Teams participate in head-to-head competition and are scored in six events, including Compulsory, Acro, Pyramid, Toss, Tumbling, and Team.

Acrobatics & tumbling marks the 21st intercollegiate sport offered at Saint Leo and the school’s 12th offering in women’s sports.

The athletics department last added women’s beach volleyball to its sports offerings in 2017.

The acrobatics & tumbling team’s 18-member roster includes five athletes from The Laker/Lutz News coverage area, with the remainder representing other areas of Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina. The team is coached by Allie Williams and Joely Smith.

The Pasco-Hernando State College men’s baseball team is coming off a third-place finish at the 2019 National Junior College Athletic Association Division II College World Series. (Courtesy of Pasco-Hernando State College athletics)

These teams look to repeat success
The 2019 season — and last several years, for that matter — yielded banner campaigns for many prep and college teams in our coverage area. Here are some programs that may be worth watching to see if they maintain or build off past successes:

  • Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High varsity volleyball
  • Gaither High varsity football
  • Land O’ Lakes varsity girls soccer
  • Pasco-Hernando State College men’s baseball
  • Steinbrenner High varsity football
  • Steinbrenner High varsity boys cross-country
  • Saint Leo University men’s golf
  • Sunlake High varsity girls weightlifting
  • Wesley Chapel High varsity girls basketball
  • Wiregrass Ranch High varsity boys tennis

Plenty to do
There’s no shortage of recreational activities and outdoor destinations in The Laker/Lutz News coverage area. Here are a few options our readers may enjoy trying sometime in the new year:

  • Bike, run or walk the Upper Tampa Bay Trail or Withlacoochee State Trail
  • Hit the links at Trinity’s Fox Hollow Golf Club, Wesley Chapel’s Saddlebrook Resort & Spa, or Lutz’s TPC Tampa Bay, or one of the many other golf courses
  • Learn to ice skate at Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice
  • Take the family to Lutz’s Lake Park for hiking, biking, BMX racing, equestrian riding, kayaking, fishing, boating and more
  • Test your skeet shooting skills at Tampa Bay Sporting Clays in Land O’ Lakes, or Silver Dollar Shooters Club in Odessa
  • Gather your friends and coworkers and join a senior, men’s or coed softball league at Land O’ Lakes Heritage Park or the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex
  • Learn to skydive, parachute and tandem jump at Zephyrhills’ Skydive City
  • Visit Dade City’s Treehoppers to try out the largest zip line aerial adventure park in Central Florida

Published January 08, 2020

Local golfer headed to regional championships

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He’s only been golfing competitively for about two years, but Fab Laude has picked up the sport with relative ease.

He made the Wiregrass Ranch boys varsity golf team as a freshman last year, developing into one of the Bulls’ top players — and is now one of the better players in the county.

Wiregrass Ranch High School sophomore Fab Laude will compete in the Drive, Chip & Putt regional championships on Sept. 29 at TPC (Tournament Players Club) Sawgrass, in Ponte Vedra Beach. He qualified for the event after finishing runner-up in the boys 14-15 division at the Drive, Chip & Putt sub-regional qualifier last month at Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Springs. (Courtesy of Cliff Laude)

But, before the 15-year-old gets too deep into his sophomore campaign, there’s another golf competition he’s got on his mind.

On Sept. 29, Laude will compete in the Drive, Chip & Putt regional championships at TPC (Tournament Players Club) Sawgrass, in Ponte Vedra Beach.

He qualified for the event after finishing runner-up in the boys 14-15 division at the Drive, Chip & Putt sub-regional qualifier last month at Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Springs.

There, he and Tampa’s Suraj Kollegal (who placed first in the boys 14-15 division) outperformed numerous competitors from Miami, Naples, Sarasota and other areas.

Outdueling other top golfers in his age group from the southern half of the state was “very humbling,” Laude said.

At the same time, he noted, “it gave me a lot of confidence, like, ‘Yeah, I can hang with these guys,’” he said.

Unlike traditional golf, a higher score is better in the Drive, Chip & Putt event, where points are accumulated from the three fundamental skills of golf.

Driving points are calculated on yardage distance and accuracy — where a shot must finish within a 40-yard-wide fairway.

For chipping and putting, points are awarded based on how close a ball is to the hole from a series of different distances (chips from 10 to 15 yards; putts from 6 feet, 15 feet and 30 feet, respectively).

The short game is where Laude particularly excelled — something he also takes pride in his regular golf game.

“My game inside 100 yards is just on point for me,” said Laude, who grew up in Wesley Chapel. “What I believe is, you get your scoring from your short game, so I try and work on that a lot, because you can hit the ball long, but if you’re not good at your short game, you’re not going to really get anywhere.

“Even if I hit a bad shot and I know I’m 160, 170 yards out, I know that I’ll make par or at least bogey,” he said.

In between high school practices and early season matches this year, Laude has taken extra time to prepare for the upcoming Drive, Chip & Putt competition. He’s also spending his weekends honing skills and working on the different shots at his home course at Pebble Creek Golf Club, in Tampa.

Drive, Chip & Putt is a free nationwide junior golf development competition for ages 7 to 15 aimed at growing the game by focusing on the three fundamental skills employed in golf. The competition is a joint initiative founded in 2013 by the Masters Tournament, United States Golf Association and The PGA of America. (Courtesy of United States Golf Association)

Laude’s personal motto: “Train like no one else, so you can play like no one else.”

“I’m out there working every day,” Laude said. “Even if I’m doing good or bad, it just gives me momentum for me to play even better. My main goal is to play college golf, so when I see these college players and stuff I’m like, ‘I want to get to their level,’ so I try to work as hard as them.”

The regional skills tournament is the last step before the 2019 Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals at Augusta National Golf Club on April 7, the Sunday before the Masters Tournament.

Result notwithstanding, Laude plans to soak in stepping foot on TPC Sawgrass, which is home to the PGA Tour headquarters and hosts The Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s signature event. It is also widely viewed as one of the top golf courses in the United States and the world, ranking No. 10 in Golf Digest’s “America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses.”

Said Laude: “I’d have to say that this is probably like my best career moment, going to a professional course that a lot of pros play at every single year. …It’s going to be a very nice first time, putting on really fast greens, with pretty good rolling fairways, too.”

Growing up, Laude’s first love was basketball, with golf always on the backburner.

It wasn’t until a couple years ago that he realized his potential for golf, getting lessons from his godfather and other instructors in the Tampa Bay area.

Laude was always told he had “a natural swing,” as he’s since worked to fine-tune his alignment and more advanced mechanics.

It’s something longtime Wiregrass Ranch boys golf coach Mike Horrigan has noticed, when he observes Laude, who averages in the low 40s per nine holes.

“His swing is gorgeous, and he’s very polished on the course,” Horrigan said. “He just goes through the process of a pre-shot routine, and he’s very deliberate in everything that he does, and I suspect he’ll be shooting in the upper 30s before the end of this season.”

The coach added: “What impresses me about Fab is he has a very well-rounded game. When you watch him play, he’s improved in all facets of his game.”

Horrigan undoubtedly will be rooting for Laude at the Drive, Chip & Putt regional, describing him “as one of the most respectful, nicest kids I’ve ever coached.”

“I think the competition he’s gone through is just tremendous, to qualify to go (to TPC Sawgrass), so I’m really happy for him,” Horrigan said. “He loves golf, and he’s worked awful hard to become a very, very good player.”

Published September 12, 2018

PHSC president Katherine Johnson to retire next year

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After a decade of growth and success which included changing the school’s name, Pasco-Hernando State College president Katherine M. Johnson will retire from her post on June 30, 2015.

Katherine M. Johnson
Katherine M. Johnson

Johnson made the announcement in a letter to the school’s board of trustees Tuesday night, telling them that the decision was “bittersweet.” However, she said by then, she will have completed more than 10 years of service, fulfilling a promise she made to the board in 2004.

“It is my hope the timing of this announcement will allow the board ample opportunity to complete the search for and selection of a new president, ensuring a smooth transition in leadership by July 1, 2015,” Johnson wrote.

Len Johnson, the board’s chair, said Johnson’s “leadership is inspiring, and she will be greatly missed.”

During Johnson’s time, she oversaw the opening of the Spring Hill Campus in 2010, and the Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch last January. The school also changed its name from Pasco-Hernando Community College to Pasco-Hernando State college after it began to offer baccalaureate degrees. The school is now accepting applications for two new bachelor’s degrees, beginning this August.

Johnson told the board she is looking forward to spending more time with her husband, retired PGA golf professional Chuck Johnson.

“My other commitment was to my husband, promising Chuck that I would join him in retirement at the end of a decade of service, to enjoy time with him, our extended family and friends,” Johnson said.

PHSC will begin its search for a new president as early as its upcoming July reorganizational meeting.