The strongest ladies in the Keys competed at their respective regional weightlifting meets on Feb. 1, going against the best athletes in South Florida. When the chalk dust cleared and the final results were tabulated, 10 Monroe County athletes were in contention for a state title.
Marathon fared the best, capturing third out of 29 teams in the traditional event. The Fins claimed fifth place in Olympic. Coral Shores was right behind in fourth place in traditional and sixth in Olympic. Both teams compete at the 1A level. Each team will send five athletes, each of whom qualified individually, to the state competition next week.
Coral Shores’ Jennille Arias and Marathon’s Justice Lee earned their ticket to states via automatic qualification by winning their weight classes’ regional titles outright. Arias took first at 169 pounds in the traditional event. Lee punched her card to states by winning both the Olympic and traditional events at 183.
The defending state champ in both categories is ranked first in traditional, fueled by a powerful 185-pound bench press, while her closest competitor has the edge in clean and jerk. Lee narrowed that lead by five at regionals with a 205 pound clean lift, a PR for the junior. Arias went on to take the runner-up spot in the Olympic event and easily qualified in that event as well, lifting more than two of the other regions’ winners by a significant margin.
In addition to Arias, Coral Shores will send Sydney Eysenbach and Vanessa Gabriel in both events. The pair both compete in the Unlimited class. Eysenbach was second in both events at regionals and stands a good chance to win a medal in both events at states. Gabriel finished third in Olympic and fourth in traditional and is more than capable of bringing home state hardware.
Representing Coral Shores in the 110-pound class will be Rachel Rusch, who claimed third place in the traditional event. Kali Gomer was fourth in Olympic lifts at regionals and took the last at-large spot in her class in that event, rounding out the state qualifiers for the Lady ‘Canes.
Joining Lee at states for Marathon will be Ella Dunn, who finished third in both events at regionals and qualified in both for states. The 101-pound lifter is ranked in a three-way tie for third in Olympic lifts, making a medal at states well within her grasp.
Dunn will not be alone in her flight at states; Ayme Maradiaga also qualified for both events in the same weight class. Maradiaga was the runner up in traditional lifts and finished in fifth place in Olympic. Maradiaga is in a two-way tie for third place in the current rankings in traditional lifts in her class.
Ella Evans qualified for both events with a pair of runner-up medals at 129 pounds. Evans is right on the cusp of a medal at states and has progressively improved throughout the season. Lee, Dunn, Maradiaga and Evans will all compete in both events in Lakeland. The Fins’ final state qualifier is senior Brizni Vargas, whose fifth-place finish in the traditional category was strong enough to qualify the 154-pound participant for the championships in that event.
Key West, which competes at the 2A level, did not have any athletes make the final cut to the state meet, but Aaliyah McCloud was close. McCloud finished in the top 10 in both events and earned a regional fifth-place medal in the 199-pound class.
Marathon and Coral Shores will send their state-qualifying athletes to Lakeland’s RP Funding Center for the FHSAA 1A State Championships next week. Both teams’ lifters will compete on Feb. 15 with the first flights beginning at 9 a.m.
