Orlando Sports in the Spotlight

METRO ORLANDO PROMOTES itself as the tourist capital of the world, drawing more than 70 million visitors annually to its ever-expanding gaggle of theme parks and attractions.

But could Orlando also boast about its championship credentials? Maybe call itself Title Town, like Green Bay does because of its numerous NFL football championships. The Lake Mary little league team, after all, just won the 2024 Little League World Series, the state of Florida’s first in a tournament that stretches back to 1947. And the Orlando Pride professional women’s soccer team has set an unbeaten streak record—standing at 21 matches at press time—in the National Women’s Soccer League.

What’s going on?

Partly, it’s the result of lots of hard work. The Lake Mary little leaguers played more than 80 games on their way to the championship in late August. They also endured two-a-day practices during the previous summer. As assistant coach Kyle Bono says of the team, “they’re like mini professional players” by the time they reached the penultimate World Series game held in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

And professional soccer players essentially live their sport, from the food they eat to the continual year-round march for perfection. They get about a month off between seasons, and even then, they are working out.“We definitely don’t get much time off . But we love to do it,” says Orlando Pride midfielder Haley McCutcheon. It also helps that the Pride have two of the best players in the sport: Marta, the Brazilian superstar considered by many to be the best female to ever play; and Barbra Banda, the leading scorer in the league.

Winning It All

Along with winning it all, the Lake Mary squad also earned a reputation for good sportsmanship. After edging Taipei 2-1 in extra innings during the championship game, all 12 Lake Mary boys stormed the field, jumping, whooping and hollering. After playing 21 games against the best little leaguers in the world, it was justifiably celebration time for Lake Mary.

Then catcher Landon Bono noticed that Taipei pitcher Chiu Wei-Che was on his knees, tears running down his cheeks. Bono put his arm around the distraught youngster because he knew how bad it feels to lose a big game. Wei-Che was one of only two Taipei players who could speak English. “I told him ‘You are one of the best pitchers we faced this year. You did really good,” Bono recalls.

Wei-Che’s reply: “He just kept saying, ‘Thank you so much,’” Bono says. Lake Mary shortstop Chase Anderson sought out his Taipei counterpart, Chen Bo-Wei, and gave him a hug. “It was like saying, ‘It’s okay,’” Anderson says. Within seconds, all the players from both teams were hugging and commiserating, overcoming the language barrier with pure emotion. Anderson and Bono say the reason they and their teammates consoled the Taipei players was because they could easily remember last summer, when Lake Mary lost in the World Series regional finals game in Warner Robbins, Georgia. They, too, had cried.

Jonathan Anderson, Chase’s dad and the team’s manager, was touched by the compassion his players showed, though not surprised. “To just leave them (Taipei) out there on their own, that’s not the right thing to do. That game could have gone either way. We could have lost,” he says. The victory was the culmination of a long spring and summer. The Lake Mary boys had played more than 80 games between their regular Little League teams, travel squads and the World Series.

During their arduous season (major leaguers play 162 games), the Lake Mary boys exhibited many of the traits of their baseball heroes. The Seminole County youngsters knew how to position themselves in the field, what base to cover depending on the circumstances and how to throw a fastball or changeup. They were not afraid to swing for the fences or drop down a bunt. That’s no accident. Anderson says the players are exposed to just about everything that can happen on the diamond through practices and games. And paying attention to every pitch and staying sharp—in the moment—is just as important as the physical acts of throwing, catching and hitting. “If you are not mentally prepared to make a play, you won’t do it…If you get those kids to lock in, they will win,” he says.

An Exceptional Season

The same can be said for the Pride, who have not lost a regular season game in more than a year. Along the way, goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse and the Pride defense have shut out their opponents in a record 11 out of their 21 games. Head Coach Seb Hines said during a recent press conference that his squad is “buying in” to playing all facets of the game, from scoring to defending. “It’s a collective effort from everyone,” he says, “not just the stars.” He’s especially complimentary of the Pride’s midfielders and defenders, the players that often go unnoticed in the media. “We take a lot of pride in doing the dirty work,” says Pride midfielder Kerry Abello.

Last year, the Pride missed the playoffs by one goal, fueling their drive this year. McCutcheon says players decided they would not be denied this season. “We just set higher goals for ourselves,” says McCutcheon, who like her teammates can run some eight to nine miles during a match. Lake Mary’s Jonathan Anderson says one of the keys to his team’s success was their ability to bond even though they came together only a few weeks before the World Series. They were picked off their six regular season teams—Chase Anderson from the Phillies, Landon Bono from the Braves, for instance— to form a Lake Mary all-star squad.

Coming Together, On And Off The Field

Manager Anderson marveled at how they quickly came together as a team and grew in confidence as players and as boys over the course of the World Series, much of which was televised on ESPN. Throughout the series, the boys gave short interviews on Zoom calls with Orlando media as well as chats with ESPN correspondents. Landon Bono says it was fun being interviewed, though a little intimidating at first. ESPN personalities quizzed the entire team on camera at one point, trying to dig deeper into the boys’ personalities beyond their favorite major league baseball player.

Chase Anderson’s favorite player is Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper. “He hits bombs,” says Anderson, who concedes he can’t launch a ball nearly as far as his hero. Bono favors Yordan Alvarez, the left fielder/designated hitter for the Houston Astros. “He’s a lefty power hitter, like me,” says Bono, who was not bragging. Bono won the Little League Home Run Derby, swatting 20 balls out of the park in the final round. He is the only little leaguer to win the event while his team was compet- ing in the tourney. Talking to the media now, he says, “is not really weird.”

The Pride’s Abello says she could feel her team coming together and incrementally getting stronger during her three years in Orlando. “There’s been an entire culture reset,” says Abello, who like most of her teammates started playing soccer when she was a youngster. She pointed to a game earlier in the season against an undefeated Kansas City squad on the road as one of the highlights of the year.

The Pride played much of the game a player down yet prevailed 2-1. “It wasn’t our best game,” she says, “but we won.” McCutcheon and Abello say they are surprised to make it this far into the season unbeaten at 15-0-6 (four games remain as of press time) but were confident from the start that they had an excellent team capable of winning a lot of matches. “A dream season,” Abello says. “We knew we were going to be good.”

The Best Part

Lake Mary’s dream season resulted in it becoming a favorite of baseball fans throughout the country, with the team’s final two games drawing the largest audiences for little league contests on ABC since 2015. The game against Taipei attracted 3.54 million viewers, according to the Sports Business Journal. The Pride have caught on as well. They recently drew their largest crowd at home this season, with nearly 10,000 people. Winning, as any team follower knows, tends to increase attendance. The Pride have already qualified for the playoffs, only the second time in the club’s nine-year history. “We’re obviously trying to keep ourselves at the top of the table,” Hines says.

The best part of winning it all, Chase Anderson says, was the support the team received from parents, friends and the Central Florida community. Landon Bono echoed those sentiments, saying “connecting as a family” was important, as well as “winning the whole thing.” After flying back to Orlando following two weeks in Williamsport this August, the team was greeted by well-wishers at Orlando International Airport. It was also feted with two parades—one at Walt Disney World, the other in downtown Lake Mary—and players wore their uniforms upon returning to school. Landon Bono says he was even ap- proached for autographs by fellow students upon his first day of classes at Greenwood Middle School. “It was cool,” he says. Kyle Bono was a bit wistful thinking back on the championship run. “It was,” he says, “an almost a perfect summer.”

For the Pride, the ultimate prizes—finishing atop the 14-team league and winning the title—remains in the not-too-distant future. “Why not?” McCutcheon says. “Why can’t we achieve that.