Lake Mary head coach Jonathan Anderson rejects any claims of illegal wrongdoing when it comes to his Little League program in the state of Florida. This latest eligibility scandal is much ado about nothing, he says.
However, a second protest filed by one of his recent opponents remains unresolved.
It will be interesting to see whether Little League International chooses to acknowledge the concerns surrounding one of its most dominant teams. If found to be true, the allegations could completely unravel multiple years of results, similar to what happened with Jackie Robinson West.
Lake Mary won the Florida state championship in blowout fashion.
Lake Mary defeated Chinese Taipei in the Little League World Series championship game in 2024 to become the first-ever champion from the state of Florida. It continues to be a national powerhouse.
In fact, Lake Mary defeated Bayshore 10-0 in the 2025 Florida state championship game to advance to the Southeast Regional on July 20.
Here is where things get interesting. Bayshore filed a protest against its opponent prior to the game, which raised questions about the “traditional schooling” status of several Lake Mary players.
More specifically, the aforementioned players are enrolled at Trinity Simone Christian Prep Academy. Trinity Simone allegedly does not meet the criteria for traditional attendance, lacks sixth-grade enrollment and is not listed as a “hybrid” private school eligible to receive Step-Up funding from the State of Florida.
Bayshore believes the protest should have postponed first pitch. The team was not ready to play the game because it chose not to go through its full warm-up routine while waiting for a decision.
Anderson questions why his opponent did not properly prepare.
“Bayshore did protest a player that attended the school in question and LL was informed of the Protest,” he wrote on Facebook. “Why Bayshore decided not to warm up properly for a 10am game is a bit confusing but that did happen as well.”
Fair enough!! Valid point.
Bayshore would be the first to admit it should have gone through warm-ups as planned. It expected the filed protest to delay the first pitch.
Instead, Little League allowed the game to proceed under protest and pushed further communication to the following weekend. The initial protest was then denied. Little League found no wrongdoing.
Bayshore filed a second protest.
Further scrutiny toward Lake Mary stems from seemingly suspicious residential information.
One parent might’ve changed her voter registration address to make her son eligible for competition. Another player’s address seems to be tied to a non-residential facility.
I have seen documents that appear to show proof of these address discrepancies. Jonathan Anderson says it is untrue.
“As the person that holds the book with all of the information, I’m telling you it’s spaghetti against the wall,” he wrote. “No office was used as an address for someone to gain residence. Also, if the documentation was as bad as this article details, then Lake Mary would have been disqualified almost immediately.”
Lake Mary’s head coach also provided further information about eligibility rules.
“At Little League you can either choose residency as what gets your in the boundary or use a school address,” Anderson wrote. “I’m assuming Little League believes that you may want to grow up playing against the kids you got to school with.”
All of these allegations are separate from Bayshore’s second protest.
The second protest focuses only on an alleged out-of-boundary player who played for Lake Mary in both 2024 and 2025. He would, per the rules as they are written, require what is called a “D2 Waiver” and approval from the Little League Charter Committee to be ruled as eligible.
Bayshore asked Little League International to provide proof of the D2 Waiver— formally known as the Regulation II(d) Waiver.
Little League has yet to respond.
As of this writing, it is my understanding that Little League’s investigation into Lake Mary remains open. Bayshore has not received an answer regarding its second protest.
Meanwhile, Jacob Anderson stands by his program and its actions.
“Don’t forget we moved on to the SE Regional with this Protest and complaints following us,” he wrote. “The book was almost scrapped and had to be redone. Principals were called by LL International, documentation after documentation was asked until they felt comfortable that these people with false claims were just that. False.”
He encourages the people who doubt his team’s ability to be as good as it is for multiple years in a row to “come to Lake Mary Sports Complex on a Saturday and watch some baseball.” He also welcomes those same people to “come on down to Lake Mary Sports Complex” to “dig in” to the allegations and “let him know what they find.”
Anderson did not address the D2 Waiver. I have reached out to Little League International for additional clarification.