By SAM HOLLEMAN
Staying after school to practice in a weightlifting room that resembles a prison, the team is ready for the meet to begin.
“The kids on the weightlifting team are more involved and seem more excited about improving compared to last year’s team,” coach Phil Ziglar said.
On Feb. 29, the boys went up against University and Freedom in the Wayne Rickman Gymnasium. Boone suffered a loss to University, 38-44, but beat Freedom High School, 56-23. Senior Dylan Fontaine lifted a new personal best with a total weight of 365.
“We did really well for our first meet. The rules tend to put more pressure on the lifters, especially new lifters who have not competed before,” Ziglar said.
The bench press is the weightlifting team’s biggest weakness. Coach Ziglar also stated that making kids confident in themselves is another difficult part of coaching the weightlifting team.
“[The most difficult part about coaching weightlifting for me ] is trying to get the boys past their block headed stubbornness; our girls weightlifting team tends to follow direction better than the boys team,” coach Glen Listort said.
According to Coach Listort, the team’s biggest strength is their depth; there are strong lifters in all weight classes, not just one or two.
“The bench press is what I am best at, so I want to be lifting at least 350 pounds this season,” senior Samuel Borges said.
Weightlifting is a sport based on the improvement a player makes on an individual level and less upon how the team as a whole does.
“I feel we have a better shot of having more people place at the meets than last year because we have so many returning lifters,” Borges said.
On March 7, the weightlifting team met at Lake Nona High School for a meet against Timber Creek, Lake Nona, and Cypress Creek.
The boys suffered a loss to Timber Creek High School 41-47, but beat Cypress Creek, 55-7. Although it was supposed to be a quad-meet, Lake Nona did not attend.
Senior Desmond Holland placed first in his respective weight class and Javon Clark lifted a total of 510, which is his personal best.
“I think we did well as a team at the meet against Cypress Creek and Timber Creek; even though we did not score as well as we had hoped, we are improving as a team from meet to meet,” sophomore Anthony Santana said.
The majority of lifters joined the weightlifting team to train for other sports such as football, but it is not a requirement to be on the team.
“Weightliftng is a great individual sport that gives the small guys a chance to compete,” Ziglar said.
The team has a very experienced middle division (weight classes from 140 pounds to 160) due to the amount of lifters returning from the previous season. The lower weight classes are strong in the clean and jerk.
“All of the lifters enjoy practicing and being on the weightlifting team, they make my job as a coach really easy,” Ziglar said.
The next weightlifting meet for the boys is tonight at 5 p.m. against Colonial and East River at Colonial High School.