This week on the Keys Weekly Sports Wrap Podcast, host Sean McDonald sits down with Amber Archer Acevedo, the Deputy Superintendent of Monroe County Schools and a former Key West High School principal. In addition to being integral to the educational experience of students throughout the Keys. Acevedo is a Class of 1980 classmate of legendary Key West High School athlete Robert “Speedy” Neal, who passed away a few weeks ago. Listen as McDonald talks with Acevedo about her earliest memories of Speedy on the old Kennedy baseball fields and the impact he had on Key West. The pair also discuss Acevedo and her father’s contributions to sports journalism in Monroe County.

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Xavyer Arrington is a two-time state champion in weightlifting and a dominant defensive lineman for Coral Shores High School. With five college offers before his senior season began, the multisport star has committed to play football for the U.S. Naval Academy. And before graduating, he closed out his high school weightlifting career with a second consecutive state championship, bringing home gold in the Olympic category of the Unlimited weight class on April 15. Listen as host Sean McDonald talks with Arrington about his path to the Naval Academy, what it takes to be a state champion, and how special Coral Shores football fans are. The episode also treats listeners to a breakdown of postseason baseball and softball for all three Keys high schools.

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Marathon High School pitcher Dylan Ziels is putting the nation on notice. Throughout the spring 2023 season, Ziels has floated throughout the top 10 spots on the national list of strikeout leaders. With 99 strikeouts over 44.1 innings pitched as of the day of this podcast, he currently has an eight-strikeout lead in the state of Florida. Listen as host Sean McDonald sits down with Ziels and MHS head coach Joey Gonzalez to discuss the pitcher’s rise to dominance and the Dolphins’ continued emergence as a top contender in the South Florida Baseball Conference. As always, the episode includes a wrap up of all prep sports scores and outlooks as the spring sports season nears its end.

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Everyone who follows Key West High School sports knows Rick Lopez. The general manager of Florida Keys Media is known as one of the “voices of the Conchs” as he has called Conch baseball games since 1998 and Conch football since 2000. Listen as host Sean McDonald sits down with Lopez to talk about how he got started in sports broadcasting and reminisce about Lopez’s favorite moments in Monroe County Sports.

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This week on the Keys Weekly Sports Wrap podcast, host Sean McDonald is joined by Key West’s number one rapper Mike Stack. Shooting to local fame with his single “I’m From Key West,” the rising star will headline the upcoming Garrett Hughes benefit concert on Saturday, April 8 at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater. Proceeds from the family-friendly show will go to the Garrett Hughes Memorial Scholarship, named in honor of the beloved Key West High graduate who lost his life this February. Listen as Stack discusses his relationship with Hughes and the way the Key West community has responded to his vision to make sure Garrett’s name lives on.

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Baseball is a proud tradition in Key West, and the consistent success of the Conchs’ program is largely attributed to legendary varsity coach Ralph Henriquez. Over the past two decades, Henriquez has amassed three state titles, with several squads earning top national rankings. More than 120 of his former players have signed college scholarships, with 11 athletes drafted into the pros straight from high school. In part 1 of this two-part episode, listen as host Sean McDonald sits down with Henriquez to discuss growing up in Key West, watching minor league baseball and the impact that baseball had on his life.

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Coach Judd Wise returns to the podcast to discuss his list of the best Key West High School athletes, the end of the 2022-2023 winter sport season, and the beginning of spring sports. Listen as host Sean McDonald sits down with coach Wise to discuss the recent success of Key West High School wrestling and recent athletic happenings at the southernmost high school. Wise also includes some new additions to his famous list of best athletes he has watched at Key West High School.

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Carl “Chef Flavor” Stanton is best known around the Marathon community as an assistant football coach and one of the town’s foremost flavor authorities as he oversees the culinary program at Marathon High School. But as we find this week with coach Sean McDonald, there’s much more to Stanton’s story than most know, including his time at T.C. Williams High School as the brother of a famous football player from “Remember the Titans.” The two discuss Stanton’s memories and athletic career at T.C. and the University of Maryland, being a chef, and traveling and working with some of the biggest Hair Metal bands of the ‘80s. Listeners will barely believe the places “Chef” has been and some of the people he calls friends – including a video gaming showdown with the artist formerly known as Prince. He also discusses how he arrived in the Florida Keys and became a football coach at Marathon. 

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Junior Mikkel Ross is a resilient athletic star at Marathon High School. A multi-sport athlete, she just returned from the Florida state championship weightlifting meet with some hardware, claiming a fifth-place medal in traditional lifts for her weight class. Listen as coach Sean McDonald sits down with Ross to discuss her journey to a state championship medal, how cross country has helped her attain this goal and her ability to bounce back from a devastating knee injury 13 months ago. In addition to providing a Keys-wide roundup of the start of spring sports action, McDonald opens the podcast with a heartfelt moment of remembrance for Garrett Hughes, a former Key West High School athletic standout who passed away in a tragic shooting earlier this month.

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