Ultimate Sports Day

Tell me where else in the world you could have experienced the following day: Championship Boat Racing, Championship High School Basketball, top college baseball talent.

Here is a recap of the day you could have had in Central Florida’s Polk County today. It was a day that would make any sports fan happy.

12:30pm – First pitch at Chain of Lakes Stadium in Winter Haven between Ohio State (sorry…THE Ohio State University) and Northeastern University. Ohio State is just one of the 215 college baseball teams participating in the Central Florida Collegiate Baseball Invitational. The competition will go on until the end of March and other big name schools participating include: UConn, Indiana, Illinois and Miami (OH). Ohio State played a double header today in Winter Haven (photos), with their second contest against Maine. With a busy day ahead, I couldn’t stay for the whole game, so it was off to Lakeland to catch a little of the Orange Cup Regatta.

1:30pm – After the short drive to Lake Hollingsworth in Lakeland (known as the “Lake of Records” in the boat racing community), I was ready to see some of the many classes of speed boats racing around the course on Lake Hollingsworth. I wasn’t the only one either. Cars (and even campers) lined the 2+ mile banks of the lake to take in the action. It was a pretty cool atmosphere that even reminded me of a NASCAR race a little. I was able to catch several classes in action, including one of the most exciting, the Jersey Speed Skiffs. These boats started out way back in the day as rum running boats. Now they use their speed for other things. The Orange Cup Regatta is in its 72nd running this year. I knew the races would be going on tomorrow too, so I left Lake Hollingsworth (after snapping these photos) to make the short drive to The Lakeland Center, home to the FHSAA state basketball championships. The class 4A State Championship tipped off at 3:30pm.

3:30pm – Just in time to see the tip-off between Cocoa High School and Springstead for the 4A title. Cocoa is the team that knocked off local favorite Bartow High School in the state semifinal round. They played a tough game against the undefeated Springstead team. Tough enough to hand them their first loss of the season and win the state championship (75-60). A great crowd was on hand for this event too (Photos here). I wasn’t the only one enjoying this sports-filled day.

5pm – The last stop on my tour of one of Polk County’s biggest sports days was the brand new Lake Myrtle Sports Complex in Auburndale. The Central Florida Collegiate Baseball Invitational is the first event to be held at the new complex. There were several games going on as I arrived and I had a chance to see not one, not two, but five college baseball games (photos here). Some of the teams in action at Lake Myrtle when I was there included Grand Valley State, Saginaw Valley, RPI, Assumption and Kings College (PA). Lake Myrtle is a great place to see these games because you can get up close to the action. The layout is great too because you can see several games going on at once.

6:30pm – Time to call it a day after several different sports and several different venues.

Keep in mind that this day did not include a Detroit Tigers Spring Training game (they were on the road against the Phillies in Clearwater). It is probably a good thing they were on the road since that would have thrown a serious wrench in my sports day planning. There really wasn’t any room for that anyway. By the way, they are at Joker Marchant Stadium tomorrow against the Yankees. If you would like to have the same type of day I had, you can tomorrow because it will all start back up again when the sun comes up. Just sub the Tigers/Yankees game for the FHSAA Finals (which ended today) and you are all set.

Oh, and if you are wondering what it cost to see all this action….$16. That’s right….$9 for the FHSAA Finals, $7 for the Central Florida Collegiate Invitational and zero for the Orange Cup Regatta. Who says admission to sporting events will make you go broke (see the above mentioned Yankees).