For the 3rd straight year, the Lexington County Blowfish will have new leadership in the dugout.

Fico Kondla, an assistant coach at Newberry College, will oversea the team for the 2021 season. A graduate of Coker College, he was officially introduced as Matthew Padgett’s replacement during the Mayor’s Prayer Luncheon at Lexington County Baseball Stadium.

“I’ve heard great things about Lexington and the support here from the front office to the players on the field,” he said. “It’s a 1st class organization and I was looking for a head coaching opportunity and I was lucky enough that things aligned and this was opening up this summer. I applied and, luckily, got the job.”

This is Kondla’s 2nd job with a Coastal Plain League. He previously served as an assistant coach with the Morehead City Marlins during their back-to-back Pettit Cup championship runs in 2018 and 2019.

Kondla plans to apply that past experience with a winning program towards building a championship program in Lexington.

“Being organized and having a team that wants to win, that wants to be there the whole summer, plays the game the right way, runs hard and plays hard, while not doing things that disrespect the game,” he said. “Holding players accountable. I know it’s the summer and players want to go out and have fun, but there’s a difference between developing over the summer and having fun and winning ballgames. I think that all correlates together.”

Kondla just hired Matthew Ribera, a graduate assistant/pitching coach at Wheeling University in West Virginia, to serve the same duties with the Blowfish. He hopes to emphasize pitching and solid defense with a roster which currently has 15 players committed to next season.

The Coastal Plain League will return to its 4, 4-team divisions for 2021. The South Division will look different with Spartanburg (formerly the Gastonia Grizzlies) replacing Florence in the group with Lexington County, Savannah Bananas and Macon Bacon.