LUTZ, Fla. — One Principal in Hillsborough County is celebrating her staff on making this year’s Schools of Excellence list.

The list was started by the State of Florida in 2017 and honors the highest performing schools statewide.

Maniscalco K-8 in Lutz made the list this year after it’s Principal, Tammy Reale, says it started focusing on data driven academic monitoring.

“The last year that we were a B was in 2021, and that kind of hit our teachers hard, like what are we doing wrong?” Reale said. “They weren’t doing anything wrong. We just needed to look at the data a little bit differently.”

It is hard to escape that data driven approach at Maniscalco.

Teachers have data points posted all over their classrooms, and the halls of the school are lined with student goals and achievements.

Principal Reale says as teachers monitor new forms of data, they have the ability to more quickly identify students that need a push, and others that are falling behind.

“It gives the teachers an opportunity to intervene earlier as they are tracking data,” Reale said.

Hillsborough County is celebrating 31 schools that made the Schools of Excellence list this year.

Currently, just over 10% of all Hillsborough County schools are recognized as Schools of Excellence.

Florida softball will host the Gainesville Regional in the NCAA Tournament as the No. 4 overall seed. Florida Gulf Coast and FAU also are in the four-team field for games starting Friday.

After a one year sabbatical, the NCAA Regionals are back in Gainesville.

The Gators received the No. 4 overall seed and will be the top team at the Gainesville Regional, set for this weekend at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium.

UF will be joined by South Alabama, FAU and Florida Gulf Coast.

The Gainesville Regional will be paired with the Stillwater Regional, which features No. 5 overall seed Oklahoma State, Northern Colorado, Michigan and fellow SEC foe Kentucky.

Florida opens vs FGCU Friday at noon on SEC Network.

Two weeks ago, the Gators chances of hosting a regional were in doubt.

However, the orange and blue have been on a tear the last two weeks. It won two of three in Georgia, defeated Florida State and swept Texas A&M.

The momentum carried over big time in Auburn for the SEC Tournament. Florida made quick work of Georgia, Texas A&M and Missouri by a combined score of 22-8 for its first tournament title since 2019.

UF last won a regional in 2022, when it defeated Canisius, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin. It then beat Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to win super regionals and advance to Oklahoma City and the Women’s College World Series.

In total, the Gators have made the NCAA postseason 24 times in its 29 seasons. They’ve advanced to super regionals 14 times and the WCWS 11 times.

Florida has won the WCWS in 2014 and 2015.

Noah Ram covers Gainesville-area high school sports and University of Florida athletics for The Gainesville Sun. Contact him at Nram@gannett.com and follow him @Noah_ram1 on Twitter.