The 2025 College of Central Florida Patriots baseball team opens up their season this weekend with three games in Auburndale, Florida. The games are part of the 2025 JUCO Kickoff Tournament being played at the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex and includes a total of ten Florida JUCO teams.
The Patriots will play two games on Friday, January 24th. Game one is against the Hillsborough Community College Hawks at Noon, and game two will see the Patriots play the St. Petersburg College Titans at 3:00 PM. The final game of the opening weekend will be on Saturday, January 25th, 3:00 PM when the Pats take on perennial powerhouse, the Chipola College Indians. Chipola has won three national championships, while the Patriots won their first national title in 2023.
CF is led by Head Coach, Marty Smith who is entering his 31st season at the helm of the Patriots. Smith has accumulated 953 wins and currently is one of only two active JUCO coaches in the state of Florida with over 900 wins. When asked what his thoughts were on this year's team, Smith said "I'm excited about the talent that we have. We seem to be a little deeper in pitching than last year. We have enough returning guys with experience that are hungry to do better than what we thought was a disappointing season last year. But in general, we are really excited to get going and think we have a team that can contend for a championship."
The team will carry 27 players on this season's squad, with four of the players being from Ocala. The four local players hoping to help lead the team back to the JUCO World Series in Colorado are Sophomore SS/2B, Cooper Jones (North Marion HS), Sophomore LHP, Karson Lindsey (North Marion HS), Sophomore RHP, Hunter Jones (North Marion HS, University of Florida), and Freshman LHP, Kohl Kilcrease (Forest High School).
Other returning sophomores include: Marcus Bradshaw/OF, Armando Guirola/OF, Anthony Diaz/OF, Logan Chapman/IF, Miles Curley IF/RHP, and Evan Dobias/RHP. New sophomore transfers include: Arturo Ormaza/LHP, Dawson Harman/3B, and Joey Wimpelberg/RHP.
The freshman players include: Bruno Schafer/1B, Jacob McKenzie/C, Jose Paniagua/RHP, Victor Martinez/1B, Brett House/OF, Jay Jung/RHP, Jake Meadows/RHP, Colson Altman/RHP, Jaewoo Cho/RHP, Tanner Swank/IF, Peyton Fall/LHP, Brayden Toro/RHP, Gio Mendoza/C, and Cory Geinzer/RHP.
"This team has a lot of talent, but obviously you don't win with talent alone. You need to come together as a team each and every game. Learn from your mistakes and move forward. We spend the entire season trying to get better so when it comes time for playoffs, we're ready." Assistant Coach Tony Voiro.
The first of 27 home games for the Patriots will be Tuesday, January 28th, 2:00 PM vs. A3 Academy. All home games are played at Goodlett Field on the College of Central Florida campus in Ocala. Admission is free. Come on out and cheer on the Patriots.