By: J. Daniel Pearson for Positively Osceola
For a seventh consecutive year, Osceola High School has qualified for the FHSAA State Wrestling Duals Championships and this time they will have some company from the county. Wrestling in separate sub-regionals, both the Kowboys and the Harmony Longhorns punched their tickets to the state finals on Thursday evening with impressive wins.
Those two teams, along with six others, will meet in the 3A state championship tournament at Osceola High School next weekend. The quarterfinals are slated for Friday evening (Jan. 19) with the semifinals and finals on Saturday (Jan. 20). Osceola High is also hosting the 2A and 1A championships at the same time.
The Kowboys put on a dominating performance in beating Strawberry Crest in the semifinals, 58-22, and before dispatching George Steinbrenner by an almost identical score (52-22) in the final.
“Overall, we accomplished what we wanted to,” Osceola coach Rick Tribit said. “There weren’t any real surprises but I was pleased that we were able to build comfortable leads in both matches. That allowed us to move some athletes around and give some of our junior varsity kids some big-time varsity of experience.”
In the Strawberry Crest match, Osceola picked up two forfeits in the lighter class but found themselves tied 12-12 after four matches after Crest record two pins. That tie was quickly broken as Ehab Shlaby (132), Isfandier Sharipov (138), Jayson Ortiz (144) and Nathaniel Cabrera (152) all won by consecutive pinfalls in the next four matches to put Osceola in front, 36-12.
Anderson Heap, a two-time state champion, then recorded an 18-3 technical fall and two matches later, Gunner Holland gave Osceola an insurmountable lead with a technical fall to make 44-18.
In the sub-regional championship match, freshman Adais Ortiz (113), Talyn Fisk (120), Gabe Oden (126), Heap (152), Cabrera (158), Deacon DeLong (175), Gunner Holland (190) and Jaquille Knox (285) all recorded pins in the runaway win.
“Jayson (Ortiz) and Nathaniel (Cabrera) really had great meets for us and both got better today,” Tribit added. “Jaquille Knox’s win was really big. That win came against one of the wrestlers he is probably going to have to beat to get out of regionals.”
Although Harmony made it to final eight in the 2A Tournament in 2019, this will be their first appearance in the state championship duals as a 3A school since moving up to that class three years ago. They got there by dominating Ft. Pierce Central, 58-20, in the semfinals and then slipping by Viera in the finals, 39-30.
The sub-regional championship was not decided until the final match of the night, where Harmony’s Nathan Lyttle pinned Justus Giglietti at 106-lbs. to clinch the victory. “Viera’s a solid team and I knew the possibility existed that it would come down to the final match,” Harmony coach Vic Lorenzano said. “But by the same token, we felt pretty good about that final match being in Nathan’s hands.”
Lyttle, 23-2 on the season, is currently the eighth ranked wrestler in 3A at his weight class according to latest Florida Wrestling Room rankings.
While Longhorn standouts Tristan Horn (113), Carlos Rodriguez (132), Carson Estrada (138) and Shawn McAllister (150) all won by pinfalls in the championship match; three other matches were the real keys to the Longhorns’ championship victory. At 165, Michael Shannabrook took a narrow 9-7 decision over Evan Enrique. In the most exciting match of the night, John Fernandez (170) held on for a 12-11 win over Johnny Emert and at 215, Case Roberts came up with a huge pin of Luca Maldonaldo.
Had the first of two of those matches had swung the other way, and if Roberts had simply won by decision over Maldonaldo the match could have ended in Viera’s favor. “Overall, I thought we wrestled well, we definitely let one match get away from us that I felt we should have won,” Lorenzano noted. “The match at 225 was really huge for us, and at the end of the day we’re excited to get back to the state finals.”
This year will mark the seventh year of the FHSAA Duals State Wrestling Tournament. Osceola has made an appearance all six previous finals, finishing as state runner-ups in both 2023 and 2019. In their lone 2A appearance in the state finals, Harmony finished in a tie for 5th – losing its quarterfinal match. “There are 130 schools that wrestle in 3A and our sparsely populated county has two of the final eight teams still alive in the state tournament,” Lorenzano added. “That’s pretty cool when you think about it.”
