Kowboys host FHSAA meet starting Friday
Osceola High has been no stranger to the FHSAA state duals wrestling championships since it was created seven years ago. The Kowboys hosted the tournament for the previous six years, and have also qualified for it each year, finishing as state runner-ups in 2020 and 2023.
So it should come as no surprise that Osceola is headed back to this year’s event. The Kowboys qualified on Thursday, defeating Strawberry Crest in the Class 3A Region 3 semifinal, 58-22, and then earning a trip to the Elite 8 with a 52-22 win over George Steinbrenner.
Osceola will meet Palmetto Friday, Jan. 19 at 6 p.m. The semifinals and finals will be on Saturday Jan. 20 at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Osceola will be joined in the tournament by cross-county rival Harmony. Hosting the Region 3A-5 event Thursday, the Longhorns dominated Fort Pierce Central, 58-20, in the semifinals before getting by Viera, 39-30, in the championship match. The Longhorns will most likely meet Olympia Heights in a state quarterfinal Friday. A win would pair them with the Region 4 champion in Saturday’s semifinals.
“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,” Harmony coach Vic Lorenzano said. “That’s pretty cool when you think about it.”
The advancement of the Kowboys was never really in doubt. Osceola found itself tied with Strawberry Crest (12-12) after the first four matches in the semifinal, but quickly righted the ship as Ehab Shalaby (132), Isfandier Sharipov (138), Jayson Ortiz (144) and Nathaniel Cabrera (152) recorded four consecutive victories by pinfall to give the Kowboys a 36-12 lead.
Two-time state champion Anderson Heap extended the lead 28 with an 18-3 technical fall at 157, and then Gunner Holland, the No. 1 ranked wrestler in the state in Class 3A – gave OHS an insurmountable lead with a 15-0 technical fall win over Andrew Raab at 170.
In the final against Steinbrenner, freshman Adais Ortiz (113), Talyn Fisk (120), Gabe Oden (126), Heap (152), Cabrera (158), DeLong (175), Holland (190) and Jaquille Knox (285) all recorded pins and Shalaby (132) recorded a major decision as Osceola rolled to a 30-point win.
“Jayson (Ortiz) and Nathaniel (Cabrera) really had great meets for us and both got better today,” OHS Coach Rick Tribit said. “Jaquille’s win was really big against one of the wrestlers he is probably going to have to beat to get out of regionals, so it had to be a confidence builder for him.”
Harmony will be making its second appearance in the state duals but its first as a Class 3A school. The Longhorns had to earn their way there with a hard-fought win over Viera in the sub-region final, a contest went down to the final match of the evening. Leading 33-30, Nathan Lyttle put the match away with a first-period pin over Justus Giglietti.
“They are a really good team,” Lorenzano said of Viera. “Frankly the fact that it would go down to the final match really come as a big surprise to me. But by the same token, we felt pretty good about that final match being in Nathan’s hands.”
While Tristan Horn (113), Carlos Rodriguez (132), Carson Estrada (138) and Shawn McAllister (150) all won as expected in the championship match; three other matches were the real keys to the Longhorns advancing to the state finals.
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, and Case Roberts came up with a huge pin over Luca Maldonaldo. Had the two close matches had gone the other way and if Roberts had only won by decision, Viera most likely would have advanced.
“There’s more than one way to look at it. We lost one match in the final that we had no business losing and another that we could have won,” Lorenzano noted. “We gutted out those two close matches and then the win at 215 (Roberts) was huge for us. At the end of the day, we wrestled well as a team and are happy to be going to the state finals.”
Osceola is hosting all the state matches, including the Class 1A and 2A meets prior to the 3A matches. Friday’s action will include the 12 quarterfinal matches, six Saturday semifinals and three late afternoon championships.
