Trio of West Orange alums thrive as Winter Garden Squeeze interns

From the rosters of players each team needs to build from scratch every season to a constant rotation of coaches and the countless other variables required to run the highest-level baseball league in all of Central Florida, operating the Florida Collegiate Summer League and any one of its six ball clubs takes a mammoth amount of effort, expertise and dedication.

For West Orange and Southwest Orange’s hometown team, the Winter Garden Squeeze, 2025 added even more to its ever-shifting slate of worries; it was the team’s first season playing its home games at Horizon High. However, thanks to the hard work of its group of interns — which included three West Orange High graduates and the familiarity being local products brings to their understanding of the community — a season set to be full of growing pains and lessons learned turned into a rousing operational, marketing and community-engaging success. 

“From a game-night execution perspective, we would have been lost without the leadership and work ethic from this group of interns, as well as the help from my assistant GM Brian Koss, his family and our volunteers,” Squeeze GM Adam Bates said. “From their creativity in coming up with and executing on-field games between innings, to how they welcomed fans to our new home and how they executed all the operational elements that go on behind the scenes; we couldn’t have done such a wonderful job this season without them. In my 12 years as GM, I’ve seen some special people come through our internship program. … But this group is just really special, they took it to the next level.”

Throughout the summer, the four interns — Mickey Murphy, Daniella DiSciullo, Zachary Moore and Rickie Potts — were instrumental to the Squeeze’s 2025 season success.

“Their game-night preparation during off-days was extraordinary,” Bates said. “Their work during what we call review/preview days — where we either reviewed elements from the previous game or previewed what’s coming up in our next games — and the fact that three of our four interns are from West Orange, really allowed us to thrive in our transition to playing at Horizon High and serving that part of our community more directly.”

Experience of a lifetime

Beyond the benefits these interns provided to the Squeeze and the league as a whole this season — at times even hitting the road and working away games or pitching in for other teams — the most rewarding aspect of their contribution from Bates’ perspective was not only seeing them develop their professional skills, gain valuable experience in an industry that’s hard to break into and enjoy the work they got to do, but also now having the honor the of being an advocate for these young professionals in their future endeavors. 

“Stefano Foggi, the league’s president, and I talk about this all the time: We want to be advocates for our interns in their future careers,” Bates said. “We want them to call and ask for a recommendation on their next job — and I know for close to 50 interns from my 12 years here, including all four of this year’s group, if they called me tomorrow, I’d write a recommendation for them on the spot and that’s an amazing feeling.”

For Murphy, one of the three West Orange grads serving as part of the Squeeze’s squad of interns, this opportunity meant he got to experience baseball from a new perspective.

“Working for the Squeeze is a memory I’ll cherish for the rest of my life,” he said. “It gave me the chance to experience baseball in an entirely new way — from setting up the field and starting the live stream to collecting lineup cards from coaches. I learned so much about what goes into making a game day run smoothly.”

Unlike Murphy, though, DiSciullo, a fellow Warriors alumnus, didn’t enter this internship with a deep understanding of baseball. She did, however, bring positivity, creativity and the debate-inducing questions necessary for the team’s “Question of the Day” social media segment. 

“I learned a lot from the players and fellow interns as we worked together to build something around this team. I had so many opportunities to learn things I didn’t know before, and that is one of the biggest things that I am taking away from it all. My favorite moments were definitely laughing with the team as we filmed video content; you might be surprised at how strong the debates (were) for the questions of the day.”

Reap what you sow

To begin to put the impact that this group of interns had into perspective all one has to do is look at the fruits of their labor. Not only did these four have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but also they are taking home new skills and invaluable lessons that only could have been learned from being thrown into the fiery mess that is working in the sports industry.

“This internship has helped prepare me for my future career goals by giving me hands-on experience in a fast paced, real-world sports environment,” DiSciullo said. “I learned how to adapt quickly, think creatively under pressure and communicate effectively with a team. ... Every task taught me something valuable about professionalism, flexibility and the importance of teamwork.”

Although the hard work this entire group of interns put into this season produced tangible skills and lessons they can take with them in their careers, an even more tangible way to measure their positive impact is by considering the honor both DiSciullo and Moore had when they were named winners of the Sara Whiting Outstanding Young Professional Award, which recognizes the league’s top interns each season.

“Daniella, who was our social media intern winner, was primarily responsible for covering the team on all platforms by putting all relevant content about the team — like game content, game updates, schedule updates, marketing; whatever needs to be shared on our social media, she was getting it put out there.” Foggi said. “Daniella was a standout for us this year, especially when you consider each team has a social media intern, and she was still able to separate herself through the work she did. She did a great job of getting quality content, pictures, videos and getting it out there in a timely fashion. She just did everything we expect out of a social media intern at the highest level and more on top of those responsibilities — like helping out in the ballpark with whatever was needed when we were short-handed, or when people needed to wear multiple hats, she was willing to do whatever. That attitude really impressed us and so did her body of work this summer. We definitely felt that she was deserving of that award.”

Moore’s dedication to his role and above-and-beyond attitude toward filling in wherever needed, was evident even before his internship journey began. 

“Zach was a team operations intern of the year, which is funny, because he actually preferred another role — as a communications intern — but we didn’t have one available for him at the time,” Foggi said “He gladly accepted and really embraced everything team operations to the fullest degree. ... His role was really managing everything that goes into running the team off the field, and he did it all really well. But what really impressed us about Zach was he did it on the road. … He went and helped out teams that needed an extra hand. In fact, he kept doing it throughout the playoffs, even though the Squeeze were eliminated.”

Part of the reason this award is special for Moore is the opportunity to share the honor with DiSciullo.

“Winning the Intern of the Year award was such an amazing honor, and I’m so grateful that Daniella and I got to experience that together,” Moore said. “We worked so hard together this whole summer, and we were always there for each other throughout the season.”

This dream team of interns isn’t done making an impact on the Squeeze, though, as the trio of locals are planning on helping progress the organization from a seasonal e brand to its goal of being an integral community partner year-round. 

“We’re really excited to already be able to announce that our three local interns are planning on being back with us next year,” Bates said. “In my 12 seasons doing this, knowing that we’re going to have this many returning interns a year in advance has never happened ... so it’s very, very exciting for us.”

Traditionally the Squeeze use the 10 months following the season to thank the community, send their interns off to school and begin brainstorming projects, events and commitments for the offseason. According to Bates, that process becomes exponentially more productive with the return of DiSciullo, Moore and Murphy.

“Because we know they’re coming back we’ve been able to already committed to the Winter Garden Christmas Parade in December, and we know we’ll be back and bigger than ever at Spring Fever in the Garden in the Kids Zone,” Bates said. “Right now with Brian, his family and the three interns returning we’re already ahead of the process of planning our 10-month calendar for next year. That really allows us to be an even bigger part of the community and stay working toward our goal of being a year-round brand.”