- April 26, 2024
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The seeds of Matanzas’ state girls wrestling championship in 2023 were planted eight years ago when Makayla Wilder became the first girl to join the Pirates’ wrestling program.
By 2019, the Pirates could field a complete girls team and were miles ahead of most girls programs in the state when the Florida High School Athletic Association sanctioned a girls wrestling championship in 2022.
Matanzas won the state title in the tournament’s second year. It was the Pirates’ first FHSAA team championship in any sport.
Sophomore Kendall Bibla won an individual championship at 145 pounds. Her sister, Brielle Bibla, and Christina Borgmann each won second-place medals; Mariah Mills placed third for the second year in a row; Tiana Fries, who won a state title in 2022, placed fifth; Ani Brown (sixth) and Brooklyn Watt (seventh) also medaled. Matanzas outdistanced second-place Orlando Freedom 124 points to 107.
Coach Mike Fries was named the Florida Dairy Farmers Girls Wrestling Coach of the Year.
Kendall Bibla won a major decision over Bartram Trail’s Katherine Stewart in the final. The No. 1-ranked Stewart had defeated Bibla three times during the season.
“I knew she had something to prove, and I didn’t,” Bibla said. “Mentally I just kind of had to tell myself that this is the last chance. This is the last time you're going to wrestle her your sophomore year, so you have to beat her.”
Here are the other top sports stories of the year:
— Matanzas’ Cole Hash won a state weightlifting championship and Flagler Palm Coast’s Gerod Tolbert won the long jump championship at the Class 4A state track and field meet.
Both athletes were longshots to win titles. Hash bench-pressed 360 pounds — a weight he had never even attempted before — to clinch the 199-pound title at the Class 2A state meet.
“Coming back and winning it was just a great feeling. There’s nothing like it,” Hash said.
Tolbert finished fourth at state in 2022 in the triple jump. He competed in long jump just once that season. But he steadily improved in that event in 2023 and his final leap of 24 feet, 4.5 inches was nearly 10 inches longer than anyone else’s in the Class 4A competition, though his first jump turned out to be long enough to win.
“He’s a heck of an athlete,” FPC jumps coach Alex Giorgianni said. “There haven’t been many kids I’ve coached with his abilities.”
Tolbert helped the Bulldogs boys team finish fourth at state. The 4x400-meter relay team placed second. Ashton Bracewell was third in discus, and Zach Spooner (3,200-meter run) and the 4x800 relay team each placed fourth.
In weightlifting, FPC’s Nick Lilavois placed third in Class 3A in the 129-pound Olympic competition.
— FPC bowler Emma Pezzullo bowled a 300 game on Oct. 4 in a match against Spruce Creek. After bowling a 297 last year, the senior was ecstatic. Teammates, spectators and opponents all cheered when she rolled her 12th consecutive strike.
“I started crying,” she said. “My teammates came up and hugged me. My mom came up and hugged me. Everybody came up and hugged me, and I was crying.”
Pezzullo and Matanzas senior Grant McMillan both qualified for the state championships. Pezzullo won the District 3 championship. McMillan, who didn’t begin bowling until his sophomore year, won a roll-off against Spruce Creek’s Logan Wolak to finish second at district.
— FPC won its first district baseball championship since 2015 in Kyle Marsh’s first-year as the Bulldogs’ head coach. The Bulldogs won three district tournament games, including a 9-0 shutout of top seed Creekside in the final. Senior left-hander Tristen Miller pitched a three-hitter.
— FPC’s softball team began the season with 11 consecutive wins and ended it with its first playoff appearance since 2017. The Bulldogs finished with a 13-5 record.
— Matanzas golfer Alexandra Gazzoli won the Class 2A state championship in 2022. She had another big year in 2023. Gazzoli won the Florida Women's Amateur Stroke Play Championship held at TPC Treviso Bay in Naples. She finished fourth at the Class 2A state tournament and she signed with Florida State, her dream school, to continue her golf career.
— Matanzas’ football team made the playoffs and finished the season with a 7-4 record. It had been seven years since the Pirates last won seven games.
— Matanzas’ volleyball team set a school record for wins in a season, finishing with a 21-5 record.
— Hall of Fame jockey Bill Boland won the Kentucky Derby in 1950 at age 16. At 90, the Palm Coast resident shot his second hole-in-one in 10 years. Boland aced the No. 17 hole at Palm Harbor Golf Club on July 24 and almost did it again four days later. Boland also had a hole-in-one 10 years ago at Cypress Knoll.
— FPC athletic director Steve DeAugustino stepped down after 16 years to rejoin the Bulldogs’ wrestling program as an assistant coach. DeAugustino won three state championships during his 27 years as the school’s head wrestling coach. In a year of turnover, the Bulldogs have a new AD in Scott Drabczyk, a new football coach (Daniel Fish), girls basketball coach (George Butts), boys basketball coach (Michael Talley) and softball coach (Brooklyn Jimeson).
