Winter Garden Squeeze season comes to heartbreaking end in Florida League Playoffs

The Winter Garden Squeeze’s 2025 season came to an end in heartbreaking fashion, losing the single-elimination first-round game of the Florida Collegiate Summer League Playoffs to the DeLand Suns, 3-2. As the lower seed, the No. 5 Squeeze traveled to Melching Field in DeLand to play the No. 4 Suns for a spot against No. 1 the No. 1 seed River Rats in the best-of-three semifinal round. 

Led by ace pitcher Isaac Sewell of Arkansas State on the mound — who allowed just three hits, two walks, and one earned run while striking out four Suns batters in five innings of work — and Hillsborough Community College’s Zacharias Walker from the plate, the Squeeze jumped ahead. Walker drove in St Johns River State’s Isaac Incinelli for the game’s first run in the second by forcing a fielder’s choice and scored the Squeeze's second run in the top of the fifth on a single by Snead State’s Braeden Weckman.

Unfortunately for the road team, that’s when the momentum started to flip for DeLand as it cut the lead in half at the bottom of the fifth after a ground ball forced a fielder’s choice while the bases were loaded and drove in the Suns' first run. Winter Garden managed to hold DeLand scoreless for the next two innings but in the eighth, the Suns took the lead. After loading the bases again, DeLand scored the tying run on a walk before a ground ball, which turned into a double-play, drove in another run, making it 3-2 for the Suns.

With two outs in the top of the ninth, Winter Garden had a chance to recapture the lead after getting both the game-tying and go-ahead runners on base but left them stranded and saw its 12th season come to an end. 

Led by coach Mike McDaniel — who will not return to the team next season because he is set to lead the upstart program at John Melvin Christian College - Central Florida as its first head coach — the Squeeze finish the year with a 13-21 record in their first season playing home games at Horizon High. 

West Orange’s hometown Florida League team will return to the diamond for a 13th season of the highest level of baseball played across all of Central Florida in May 2026. To keep up with the team during the offseason, follow the Squeeze @WGsqueeze on X and @squeezebaseball on Instagram, and like the Winter Garden Squeeze page on Facebook.