St. Cloud High weightlifters won 15 of a possible 20 individual titles and had 26 of 27 athletes score team points, as the Bulldogs won their fifth consecutive Orange Belt Conference championship.
Cory Aun’s team dominated the competition, posting seven champions in the Olympic competition (clean and jerk plus snatch) and eight Traditional champions (clean and bench press). They outdistanced second place Harmony in the Olympic (100 to 51) and the Traditional (98-41) to compile 198 total team points. Harmony (51-41-92) finished second; Poinciana (66) was third and Celebration (35) fourth.
Liberty (20), Osceola (19), Tohopekaliga (4) and Gateway (3) rounded out the team scoring.
“Our guys had an outstanding meet overall,” Aun said. “We won two traditional individual titles, where I felt we were underdogs going in. We also had two other lifters just miss their final lifts or we would have had two more individual titles. What made the showing more impressive was that the overall competition was pretty intense, as Harmony, Poinciana and Celebration had some great lifters and pretty good team depth.”
St. Cloud’s double gold medalists included Ayden Lopez (119-pound weight class), Jayden Green (129), Santos Torres (139), Jaden Perez (183) and Mauricio Cuello Vega (238). Jason Isaraphanich (154) and Tyler Hartman (219) were the other Olympic champions for St. Cloud; while Demetrius Hollinsworth (154), Gadiel Dionisi (169) and Tristan Burnash won Traditional titles for the Bulldogs.
Perez broke his own school record in the snatch with a 250-pound lift. Dionisi and Burnash both had to come from behind on their final bench presses – hitting 260 and 305 pounds respectively – to secure Traditional titles.
Celebration’s Matt Murwasky had a dominating performance in the 199-pound class. The Storm athlete put together successful lifts of 255 (Clean-and-Jerk) and 300 (Bench) to win the Traditional by 35 pounds. He came back with a 185-lb. effort in the snatch to win the Olympic (185-255-440) by 15 pounds over his closest competitor. Murwasky joined Lopez, Green, Torres, Perez, and Cuello-Vega as the only dual gold medalists on the evening.
Murwalsky’s teammate George Taruru (219-Traditional) and Harmony’s Mehki Ealy (Unlimited-Olympic) and Bryce Berry (169-Olympic) won the other individual championships.
The victory – St. Cloud’s 17th boys title overall – completed a sweep for the Bulldogs. Last fall, the Lady Bulldogs won their 15th consecutive OBC title and 19th overall.
OBC’s concluded the regular season. Districts will be contested next week; with regionals (Apr. 22-25) and the FHSAA State Championships (May 6-8) to follow.
“Winning the conference title was awesome, but from this point forward we will concentrate on getting as many lifters as possible through districts and regionals,” Aun added. “We have a couple of athletes right now that are ranked in the top three in the state.”
