- April 28, 2024
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Flagler Palm Coast's Christina Borgmann raises her arms in celebration after pinning Lahela Turquist in the 125-pound girls title match at the state wrestling championships in Kissimmee. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
Flagler Palm Coast's first girls state wrestling champs — Christina Borgmann and Joslyn Johnson. Courtesy photo
The referee raises Joslyn Johnson's after the sophomore won the 100-pound state championship match. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
The refereee raises Christina Borgmann's arm after the FPC 125-pounder defeated Pace's Lahela Turquist for the state championship. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
Joslyn Johnson of FPC shows off her championship medal and certificate and the 100-pound state bracket with her name in the champion line. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
FPC's first girls state wrestling champs — Christina Borgmann and Joslyn Johnson — with coach David Bossardet. Courtesy photo
FPC's Christina Borgmann stands on the first-place step on the podium after winning the 125-pound state wrestling championship. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
After finishing second last season, Christina Borgmann won the state championship at 125 pounds. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
FPC junior Ana Vilar smiles after receiving her fourth-place medal for 130 pounds at the girls state championships. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
FPC senior Ethan Laupepa with his seventh-place medal at the state wrestling championships. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
Alexa Calidonio of FPC goes for the pin. After losing her first match, Calidonio won four straight matches to advance to the consolation finals. The sophomore placed fourth at 170 pounds. Photo by Rachel and Abe Mills
FPC freshman Trey Twilley placed sixth at 126 pounds in the Class 3A state wrestling championships. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
Toryion Stallings of FPC takes down his opponent at the state tournament. Stallings had the highest place among the Bulldogs' boys team, finishing fourth at 132 pounds. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills.
FPC's Joslyn Johnson celebrates after winning the 100-pound state championship. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
FPC's Ana Vilar holds up the girls state runner-up trophy. From left, FPC Principal Bobby Bossardet, Alisha Vilar, Christina Borgmann, Joslyn Johnson, Ana Vilar, Alexa Calidonio and coaches David Bossardet and Steve DeAugustino. Courtesy photo
Christina Borgmann of FPC (right) locks up Lahela Turquist of Pace in the final. Photo by Abe and Rachel Mills
In Flagler Palm Coast’s storied wrestling program, there’s not much that can be achieved that hasn’t been done already. State team championships? The Bulldogs have won three. Individual titles? FPC wrestlers had collected 12 over the years.
But on Saturday, March 2, FPC added two wrestling achievements that had never been done before in school history. Junior Christina Borgmann and sophomore Joslyn Johnson became the first Bulldogs to win girls state championships.
Two other girls, Ana Vilar and Alexa Calidonio, placed fourth at the wrestling championships. And with just four wrestlers in the girls tournament, the Bulldogs won the team runner-up trophy with 84 points, 20.5 points behind state champ Hernando.
FPC also had four boys win medals at the championships held Feb. 29 to March 2 at the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee. Toryion Stallings placed fourth, Trey Twilley placed sixth and Kelton Howard and Ethan Laupepa each placed seventh.
“Our boys and girls all wrestled well all weekend,” FPC coach David Bossardet said. “We have six girls on our roster and four qualified for state, and we finished second. Last year we had nine points and I think we were 65th in the state.”
While Borgmann won in dominating fashion to earn the 125-pound championship, Johnson needed to score an escape with three seconds to spare to win the 100-pound championship, 4-3 against Camdyn Elliott of Gulf Breeze.
“I think Joslyn’s very strong at that weight, and that definitely played a big part,” Bossardet said.
Johnson ended the season 33-5 and avenged a loss to Elliott in the regional final. Johnson was on the bottom and leading 3-2 as the third period was coming to a close. Then she heard the referee charge her with stalling, giving Elliott a point to tie the score.
“I feel like i could have been doing a little bit more on bottom, so I would understand why they would give that point up, but it got turned around really quickly,” Johnson said. “I heard the ref give me another stalling point, and in my head, I'm hearing everybody just yelling, ‘Stand up.’”
So she did, avoiding the sudden victory round by seconds. As her hand was raised for the victory, emotions caught up to her. Back at school two days later, she still had trouble believing she won the title in her first trip to the championships.
“I think it’s still a surreal feeling,” she said. “I was just kind of running around in a circle, because I didn't really know what to do or where to go. It felt nice knowing that all the work that I've been putting in this year and a half has paid off.”
Johnson started wrestling last year and came within one win of qualifying for state. Having Borgmann as her workout partner this year made a big difference, she said.
“She helped me learn a different style of wrestling because everybody has their own technique. I feel like she played a major part in me getting to the point that I'm at right now.”
Borgmann was a state runner-up at 120 pounds last year when she was with Matanzas High.
On March 2, she pinned Lahela Turquist of Pace in 3:48 to win the 125-pound title and complete an undefeated season at 25-0. But it wasn’t an easy year. Borgmann was out about a month after suffering a shoulder injury in a tournament and went through rehab to get back.
It means the world to (Christina Borgmann) and her family. It was just very exciting to see the joy on her face and her family’s face when she won.”
— DAVID BOSSARDET, FPC wrestling coach
“She’s been through a lot since October, personally and obviously changing schools,” Bossardet said. “And then to have an injury. She handled all that and went out and won the state tournament. There was no question in my mind that she was the best girl in that weight in the state. There's definitely pressure when you came close the year before and you didn't get the job done. I’ll tell you this, it means the world to her and her family. It was just very exciting to see the joy on her face and her family’s face when she won.”
Borgmann said she went into the final thinking about all of the hard work it took to get there and that no one was going to take it away from her.
“You just have to overcome adversity,” she said. “And once you overcome it, I think you can do anything you believe in. The people around me helped me too, like Coach and everyone else. Just the support of everyone helped me overcome the challenges.”
Vilar (130 pounds) and Calidonio (170 pounds) both advanced to the consolation finals. Vilar, who placed sixth last year, finished her season at 36-3. She won the consolation semifinal in sudden victory.
“After losing her semifinal and then coming back in the morning to wrestle back speaks a lot about her character and her drive,” Bossardet said. “It’s tough to bounce back when your goal is to win a state title.”
Calidonio had perhaps the biggest comeback of all. The first-year wrestler was pinned in 23 seconds by Jikayla Hutto of Orlando Jones in her first match and then won four matches in a row to advance to the consolation final.
“She got caught in a headlock (by Hutto) and we knew that was going to be a tough match, style-wise,” Bossardet said. “But for her to battle back, I couldn't be more proud of her. It was a good way to end her season for her first year wrestling.”
In the Class 3A boys championships, Stallings finished his senior season at 45-4 with a fourth-place finish at 132 pounds. After losing 2-1 in the semifinals, he won a 5-4 decision in the consolation semifinals. Twilley, a freshman, placed sixth at 126 pounds. Howard finished his senior season with a 41-6 record, placing seventh at 165 pounds. And Laupepa finished his senior season at 42-4, placing seventh at 215 pounds.
