Basketball coach Mike Larkin has quite the coaching resume. He has coached and trained players in the United States, Europe, and the Bahamas. For the last five years, the Jupiter resident has coached local girls, ranging from fifth to 12th grade.

In that five year period, his Hoops City program has sent countless high school seniors to college on basketball and academic scholarships, including five this year. Kiandra Bowers, Ayanna Holmes, Samantha Goldis, Elizabeth Bolchoz, and Lauren Janka all signed letters of intent to play college basketball at schools throughout the country.

Training at the North Palm Beach Recreation Center, girls from all over Palm Beach County come to learn and work on their game from Larkin and his staff of volunteer coaches. Larkin was a highly recruited high school point guard in Connecticut growing up and emphasizes fundamentals over winning.

His program, which is a nonprofit organization has now sent 10 girls to college on scholarship in it’s five years of existence, something that he is proud of, especially since most of the girls come from single parent homes.

“Our five scholarships this year now make 10 in five years,” Larkin told the Palm Beach Post. “That’s $1.8 million in scholarship money. And 80 percent of our girls come from single-parent households.”

For more information on Hoops City, visit their website at www.hoopscityflorida.com.

The Jupiter High School Baseball Team had a season that the players and coaches will never forget. Going into this season, the Warriors had never advanced to the State tournament. In fact, prior to this year the team had never played in a regional championship game.

The Jupiter Warriors celebrate after advancing to their first state tournament

That all changed this year as Jupiter put together its most successful seasons in program history. The team finished the season with a record of 23-5, best of any team in Palm Beach County. Their season started with a 13 game winning streak and the Warriors did not suffer their first loss until Spring Break which was almost two months into the season.

Jupiter went through the regular season relatively easily, with a dominant combination of pitching and hitting. It was this combination of pitching and hitting that allowed them to go through the regular season and postseason without facing a lot of problems. While Jupiter lost in the final four of the State Championship to Lake Brantley High School it was still a special season as it was the program’s first State Championship appearance.