State championships have been a rare occurrence for Osceola County swimmers.
How rare? The last ones were Osceola’s P.J. Freuler, who won the 500-meter freestyle at the 1995 state meet, Bryan Gillooly, who won four consecutive diving championships at Gateway from 1990-93, and Brandon Hulko, who won diving for St. Cloud in 1995-97.
That changed this year when Celebration’s Felipe Costa blew away the field by seven-tenths of a second in 49.04 seconds to win the Class 4A 100 backstroke and become the Storm’s first-ever state champion. That impressive effort earned Costa the Osceola News-Gazette Swimmer of the Year honors.
Costa, who finished tied for fifth in the same event as a junior, dominated the event as a senior – winning Orange Belt Conference, district and regional Championships along the way.
“It was a great season,” Costa said. “To tell the truth, I was a little bit disappointed that I did not break 49 seconds in the final, but it was so much fun to not only win a state championship but to also qualify for states in the 100 free and to swim with my teammates in the relay events.”
Costa joined teammates Brandon Cunningham, Greg Kamensky and Roman Sukhorukov in earning additional allstate honors in relay events. Celebration made the finals and placed eighth in the 200-medley relay, then he teamed up with the same three as the Storm took sixth place in the 200 freestyle relay. That meant that Costa had a hand in all 81 of Celebration’s team points, which resulted in a 10th place finish – the Storm’s highest ever.
He said last year’s fifthplace finish at states fueled his motivation this season.
“It was somewhat of a disappointing finish, so a day after that meet ended, I put together a plan for the coming year and started training,” Costa said. “That work paid off.”
Costa said he started swimming at a young age when his parents enrolled him in swimming lessons for safety reasons, but he quickly fell in love with the nature of competitive swimming.
“A lot of my friends were involved in club swimming and competitive meets and I wanted to join in,” he said. “What I really loved about the sport is just the feeling of moving fast in the water. All my training in and out of the pool is based on trying to get faster.”
As for the future, Costa – who wants to major in sports business – says he is looking at college options. “I would like to stay in-state and swim at the Division I level, but a lot of that is going to deal with financial aid offers. Hopefully, those decisions will happen soon.”
“We’re extremely proud of Felipe and his accomplishments,” Celebration Coach Kelly Walton said. “We have always stressed giving you best and the results would take care of themselves and Felipe is a great example of that. He was a great leader and inspiration for our team.”
Costas was not the only county athlete to score points at the state level. Osceola High also had an all-state performer in Anthony Ambrosi, who finished tied for 6th overall in the 50 freestlye in a time of 21.09 seconds.
All-County swimming
Swimmer of the Year
Felipe Costa, Celebration, Sr.
Boys: Celebration — Roman Sukhorukov, Greg Kamensky, Brandon Cunningham; Osceola — Anthony Ambrosi, Noah Maniace; Gateway — Delyn McDonald; St. Cloud — Silas Corchado; Harmony — Tanner Hinman.
Girls: Gateway — Lily Soukup, Maryam Elfakir, Selma Elfakir, Momo Sutton; Osceola — Abigail Maniace; Harmony — Sarina Steele, Amelia Wagner, Hailey Gaspard, Meredith Wagner.
