While five girls weightlifting athletes from each team prepared for their state meet this week, the boys participated in their second regular-season meetup this season. The athletes from Marathon and Coral Shores were joined by Gulliver Prep in Marathon on Feb. 5, and the Keys lifters are already showing improvements in their overall lifts. Their steady gains will be crucial in order to outmuscle their opponents in their postseason, which begins in late March and culminates in April at the state championships.
Winners for Coral Shores included some familiar names. At 139 pounds, Coral Shores’ Tyler Bettner and Kristers Vutnans split the wins last week, but Bettner’s incredible increases placed him firmly on top of the weight class in meet number two. Bettner increased his traditional lifts by 60 pounds and improved by 75 pounds in Olympic. New to the leaderboard was Coral Shores’ Aaron Lykins, who won both events at 169 pounds in his first meet of the season.
Marathon’s Chase Leird won his second set of events in the 129-pound class. Leird improved his total lifts in both events by 15 pounds. Dolphin Damian Stasiewicz (183) improved his win in Olympic lifts last week by adding a first in traditional as well this week. Stasiewicz improved by 10 pounds in each category.
Teammate Max Childress also improved by 10 pounds in each event, claiming his second set of wins in the 199-pound category. Like Childress, Tanner Ross added 10 to both his wins this week in the 219-pound class. Braulio Garcia had the same increase in his lifts. The extra plates made the difference in the 238-pounder’s wins this week. He won both categories after finishing second in Olympic lifts one week prior. Adding to the Fins’ point total was Trevor Wofsey in the Unlimited category. In their first meet, no other teams fielded an Unlimited lifter, making Wofsey’s pair of wins a great addition to Marathon’s overall score.
The addition of Wofsey’s wins in both categories gave Marathon a nice boost in their team total; however, the standings were the same as in meet number one. Marathon was first in both categories and Coral Shores pulled away with a pair of seconds in the Feb. 5 meet. Gulliver was third in both events.
Top lifters at the meet were a trio of Fins; Ross took top honors with Childress in second and Stasiewicz third using the Sinclair algorithm. All three claimed the same spot in both events.
