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PHOTO/NOAH CAMPBELL, NC FLICS
Some of the very best high school softball talent from across Florida will gather next week for the annual Roger Jones Kissimmee Klassic.
Thirty-two teams across two brackets, including five teams ranked in the top 12 in the state, will gather at the Fortune Road Softball Complex April 4-6.
Last year’s champions Somerset (Blue Bracket) and Coral Reef (Gold Bracket) are scheduled to participate, as are state powers Bartow and Doral Academy. Host Osceola and cross-county rival St. Cloud are both in the Gold Bracket.
The tournament begins with 16 first-round games starting at 2 p.m. Thursday. Quarterfinal and consolation games are start at 10 a.m. Friday. Semifinal games for both brackets begin at 1 p.m. Saturday; with championship games last for 5 p.m. Saturday evening.
The Blue Bracket is loaded with some of top teams from the state. Bartow (currently 100) is the defending state 5A champion currently ranked No. 1 across the entire state, and Somerset is the 3A State runner-up. Currently, Doral Academy is ranked sixth, Montverde Academy seventh, Melbourne eighth and Hagerty 12th by MaxPreps. The Gold Bracket features Lake Wales, the defending 4A state champion Sumner. Regional powers East Ridge and Viera are also Gold Bracket favorites.
St. Cloud (5-3) is scheduled to play Deltona (8-2) at 6 p.m. Osceola (35) will take on Riverview Sumner (7-1) at 8 p.m. If St. Cloud wins, it will play the Viera/Lake Wales winner Friday at 6 p.m. A loss would put them in a 10 a.m. game. A Kowboys win would put them in an 8 p.m. Friday game against the Canterbury/Palatka winner; they would face the loser of that game in a noon Friday game.
As usual, the Klassic features some of the state’s top individual talents. Bartow’s Kaetlyn Oxley is considered the top pitching prospect in the state. After leading Yellow Jackets to the state title last year with a 23-2 record and a 0.50 ERA, Oxley, a University of Florida commit, was 6-0 with a 0.00 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 40 innings. Other top players include Jasmine Francik of Melbourne, who was 11-0 with 188 strikeouts in 77 innings pitched with a 0.45 ERA through games of Mar. 21. Doral Academy’s Sarah Breaux is one of the state’s leading hitters, and pitcher Yessenia Lopez, a UCF commit, won 19 games last year with 246 strikeouts.
“The Roger Jones Kissimmee Klassic has a long-standing reputation of attracting the top teams and players from the state,” Osceola Coach Miranda Watford said. “The 2024 edition will be no different. This is a great opportunity to fans to come out and see some of the very best in Florida high school softball.”
The tournament was renamed in 2019 in honor of Roger Jones, a long-time coach, administrator youth sports mentor, tournament co-founder and long-time Executive Director of the event who passed away in 2018. The MVP trophies for the event are named after former Osceola coach George Coffey, another cofounder of the event, who passed away in 2021.
