By:  J. Daniel Pearson

In Friday’s Class 3A, District 9 Championships hosted by Harmony, St. Cloud’s weightlifters excelled – with team titles in both the Traditional (bench press plus clean-and-jerk) and Olympic (clean-and-jerk plus snatch) to capture district team titles.

Led by double gold medalist Mikey Ziss, St. Cloud posted four individual champions in the Traditional and seven winners in the Olympic to run away with both district team titles with 87 and 102 team points respectively.   Harmony tallied 52 points in the Traditional and 65 in the Olympic to take second place in both events; while Poinciana (24/24) and Celebration (14/10) placed third and fourth in the six team event.

The 10 district champions in the two disciplines gain automatic spots in next Saturday Class 3A, Region 3 Championships at St. Cloud High School.  The event begins at 12 noon.   In addition to the four district champions in each weight class, the next 12 best lifters across all districts competed for at-large regional spots.

“We were happy to win the team titles, but that is not what the district meet is all about,” St. Cloud coach Cory Aun said.  “Our main goal was to qualify as many lifters as possible for regionals.”

Double-winner Ziss, who also captured the Outstanding Lifter Award in both the Olympic and Traditional, led a contingent of 11 individual district champions for the Bulldogs, including traditional champions Dominic Trombetta (129), Maurcio Cuello-Vega (219) and Brian Morales (SC). Vega also doubled for St. Cloud; while other Olympic champions for St. Cloud included Torres Santos (129), Jason Isarphanich (139), Kevin Arriga (154), Chase Gilbert (169) and Landon Millman (238).

Although his team had one lifter bomb out and had several others battling injuries, Aun said that he was hopeful that 13 or 14 other St. Cloud lifters would join the 11 district champions as at-large qualifiers when the final field is announced on Monday.

Harmony, Poinciana, Tohopekaliga and Celebration will also send district champions to next week’s regional.  Poinciana had two double gold champions as Angelo Rodriguez (183) and Michael Garcia (198) won both disciplines.  Tohopekaliga has two men to the top of the podium in the Traditional with Jordan Martinez (139) and Enner Colmenares (154); while Harmony heavyweight Mekhi Ealy was a double gold medalist for the Longhorns.  Celebration’s Jayden Rodriguez was the other district champion, taking the Traditional in the 169-lb. weight class.   

It was a different story for the Bulldogs in Girls Softball.

Centennial’s Hailey Brereton slugged a two-run home run to back her own four-hitter as the Eagles defeated St. Cloud, 3-2, on Saturday afternoon in a battle of two Top 20 Class 7A Girls Softball teams.   The win pushed Centennial to 9-2 on the season; while the Bulldogs saw its eight-game winning streak snapped and fell to 9-3.

“Sometimes you can learn more from a loss than you can from a win and I think that was the case this afternoon,” St. Cloud coach Ray Whobrey said.  “Little things can make a big difference and they did tonight.  It was something we can certainly learn from and build off of.”

Centennial took a 3-0 lead in the game on the strength of Lauelei Weatheran’s RBI single in the second and Brerton’s massive home run in the third that sailed just left of the batter’s eye in dead center.  Meanwhile St. Cloud was failing to score — going 0 for 4 while leaving five runners in scoring position in the first three innings.

Still the Lady Bulldogs would fight back.

Madelis Reyes made it a 3-1 game in the fifth when she reached on a single, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Savannah Barlow’s sacrifice bunt RBI.

They had a chance to tie it in the bottom of the seventh.  Grace Comiskey walked, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Madelis Reyes single.  Reyes moved to second on the throw home – putting the potential tying run in scoring position.  But on next play, Barlow ran into her own bunt attempt out of the box for the second out and leftfielder Kylie Coblentz made a diving catch of Addison Felblinger’s gap shot to left-center to end the game.

“Those are the little things I spoke of,” Whobrey added.  “If that bunt doesn’t hit Savannah we were going to try to score from second on the play.   Felblinger made great contact but they made the play they had to have.   We failed to come up with the big hit early.  All of those were little things that cost us a chance to win this game. “

Still Whobrey was pleased with his team’s effort heading into this week’s Roger Jones Kissimmee Klassic, particularly with the pitching effort of Felblinger.  “She was a little off early but when I spoke to her after the third she said she don’t worry I have it,” the veteran coach said.  “She’s our ace and just got better as the game went on.” Felblinger struck out five in the game and retired the last 10 batters she faced.

Brererton struck out 11 in pushing her season record to 8-1.