Osceola County will be heavily represented when the FHSAA hosts the Class 3A (Friday) and Class 4A (Saturday) state track Championships at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.
To automatically qualify, athletes needed to finish first or second in their events at last week’s regional meets. In addition, a number of at large spots— which varied per event—were up for grabs for non-automatic qualifiers.
In all, 14 individual athletes and one relay team will represent Osceola County and its eight public schools at the state meet.
Gateway participated in the Region 3A-2 meet in Plant City, and the boys’ team finished seventh (35 points) and the girls team placed 10th (32) in the team competition.
Panther junior Jose Calderon is headed for the state meet after winning the 400 meters in 48.42 seconds; while junior Dalton Gould placed second in the pole vault with a jump of 11’-9 ¾”, and Levi Hill qualified in the 110 hurdles (15.02).
Aniyah Radcliff automatically qualified in two events by taking silver medals in both the long jump (17’ 2.25”) and triple jump (37’ 9.25”). She is the only county athlete to qualify for the state championships in two different events.
St. Cloud, Osceola, Tohopekaliga and Harmony participated in the 4A-3 regional at Stuart Martin County, where Vero Beach dominated the team competition. St. Cloud (ninths, 29 points) was the highest placing girls’ team, while Harmony was the county’s top boys’ team with 24 points.
Among the impressive local individual efforts, Longhorn junior Ivaniel Ramos will head to states as the Region 3 regional champion in the javelin with a toss of 159’4”, and pole vaulters Mason Shafer on the boys side and Kacey Sinagoga on the girls (9’10”) were qualifiers.
St. Cloud is sending four individuals to the state meet, as Abisai Ramos Cotto automatically qualified in the high jump with a second place finish; while Jahleek Lawrence (3rd place) gets through as an at-large. Both cleared 6’-1 ½” with Ramos taking the silver based on fewest misses. Sofia Houser (9’-10”) was second in the pole vault; while Hannah Kline’s 4’-11 ¾” fourthplace effort in the high jump was enough to garner an at-large spot.
Osceola will send its girls 4 x 400 relay team to the state championships; Zanaya Bright, Aaliyah Strachen, Mia Gonzalez-Nunez and Norelena Forde covered the distance in 4:07.34. Strachen was 5th in the long jump; while freshman Korbyn Jones had an impressive 4th place finish in triple jump (36’-9 ½”); as both garnered at-large spots in the state championship field. On the boys’ side, Jalen Bell was third in the triple jump but (43’ 2.25”) but came up just a couple inches short of securing the final at-large spot for the state meet.
For Tohopekaliga, sophomore Sanaa Charles was an automatic in the girls’ high jump with a second place finish (5’-1 ¾”); while Sofia Delgado single-handedly accounted for 13 of the Lady Tigers 21 points with a fourth-place finish in the discus and fift- place finishes in the shot put and javelin. The top boys’ finishers for the Tigers included Nikolas Boone (5th in the 3200 meters), Darwin Vega (6th in 400 hurdles) and Gabriel Centano (5th in pole vault). Only Charles qualified for the state meet for the Tigers.
Plant City High also hosted the 4A-2 regional, where Celebration and Poinciana competed. Poinciana’s boys team has two automatic state qualifiers: Levi Lee (4:21.48) took second in the 1600 meters and Tyler Johnson (46’-7 ¼”) was second in the triple jump. Hakeem Alvena gets through as an at-large with his third place finish in the 200 meters (21.50). Gavin Konopka (discus-8th place) and the girls 4x400 relay team (8th place) scored Celebration’s lone regional points.
