DeLand Suns
The DeLand Suns are a wood bat collegiate summer baseball league team located in DeLand, Florida. Formerly known as the Orlando Suns, the team is a member of the Florida Collegiate Summer League (FCSL) and plays its home games at Melching Field in DeLand. The team joined the FCSL in the 2008 season.
| DeLand Suns | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Information | |||
| League | FCSL | ||
| Location | DeLand, Florida (since 2009) Orlando, Florida (2008) | ||
| Ballpark | Melching Field at Conrad Park (2009- present) | ||
| Year founded | 2008 | ||
| League championships | 2 (2012, 2018) | ||
| Former name(s) | Orlando Suns (2008) | ||
| Former ballparks | Tinker Field (2008) | ||
| Colors | Orange, Black | ||
| Mascot | Sunny | ||
| Ownership | Florida Collegiate Summer League | ||
| Manager | Rick Hall | ||
| Uniforms | |||
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History
The Suns joined the FCSL in 2008 as an expansion team, one of three franchises joining the league that year. This brought the total number of FCSL franchises to six. In their inaugural season, the Suns finished fifth in the regular season with a 14-20 record. They then were defeated by the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs 5-4 in the play-in round of the playoffs.
In 2009, the Suns made a jump to best in the league thanks to new head coach Davey Johnson. Johnson, a former Major League Baseball manager of the year and four-time all-star, brought a professional presence to a talented squad that included future Baseball America 1st team All-American Peter O'Brien from Bethune-Cookman University. Despite their regular season success (25-13 record), they fell in the first round of the playoffs to the #4 seed Clermont Mavericks, who would go on to capture the FCSL crown.
In 2010, the Suns welcomed Rick Hall as their new head coach. Hall was a former Stetson University assistant coach. The Suns struggled throughout the season, finishing in last place with an 11-29 record. They lost the postseason play-in game to the Orlando Mavericks.
Coach Hall was able to improve things during the 2011 campaign. The team finished 3rd out of 6 teams with a 23-17 record. They went on to fight a terrific three game series vs. the #2 seed Winter Park Diamond Dawgs, though they eventually lost two games to one.
Playoff Appearances
| Year | First round | Semifinals (best-of-3) | FCSL championship game | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Winter Park Diamond Dawgs | L (4-5) | ||||
| 2009 | L (2-1) | |||||
| 2010 | Orlando Mavericks | L (3-2) | ||||
| 2011 | Winter Park Diamond Dawgs | L (3-2), W (4-1), L (6-2) | ||||
| 2012 | Winter Park Diamond Dawgs | W (4-3), L (8-0), W (8-7) | Leesburg Lightning | W (10-7) | ||
| 2013 | Orlando Monarchs | L (9-6) | ||||
| 2014 | Leesburg Lightning | L (1-0) | ||||
| 2015 | Winter Park Diamond Dawgs | L (2-1) | ||||
| 2016 | Altamonte Springs Boom | L (2-0), W (7-6), L (6-3) | ||||
| 2017 | Missed Playoffs | |||||
| 2018 | Sanford River Rats | W (2-1), W (5-1) | Winter Park Diamond Dawgs | W (4-0), L (7-5), W (12-1) | ||