Varsity Weekly: DeSantis picks 8 to FHSAA board, 4 to come; fall sports news

Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday his eight hand-picked majority members of the Florida High School Athletic Association’s board of directors.

None are in the Orlando area but there are four additional slots to be chosen by FHSAA executive director Craig Damon, and potential candidates for those seats include Hagerty athletic director Jay Getty and The Master’s Academy A.D. Trevor Berryhill. They were voted onto the board before DeSantis advocated and signed Republican legislation that blew up a decades-old formula that allowed FHSAA member schools to elect 12 of 16 board members.

FHSAA executive director looks for ‘common ground’ with board restructured by Gov. Ron DeSantis

The DeSantis selectees with traditional public school backgrounds include Ricky Bell, who was athletics director for Leon County Schools before retiring in 2020; Jim Norton, Superintendent of Schools in Gulf County, one of the state’s smallest districts; and Allen Shirley, who has an athletics background and is principal of South Sumter High School.

The private school designates are Sara Bayliss, a college admissions advisor at St. John Paul II Catholic of Tallahassee; and Paul Selvidio, who recently stepped down after nine years as head football coach for the Community School of Naples. He is now the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for that school.

Alex Tamargo is principal of Mater Academy, a South Florida charter school.

Monica Colucci is a Miami-Dade County school board member and longtime teacher who was outspoken in her campaign to be elected, saying “I have seen firsthand the detrimental impact of liberal policies being implemented in local schools throughout the country.”

Jermaine Ford is a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s captain.

TD club Hall of Fame

The Orlando Touchdown Club will induct a trio of esteemed former high school football coaches in its inaugural Coaches Hall of Fame ceremony on Monday night.
The first in are Phil Ziglar, Caesar Campana and the late George Clayton, who died last May at age 74.

Clayton coached in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania before coming to Florida in 1988 to become the face of the Lake Brantley program. He was the Patriots head coach for 19 seasons, winning 148 games including a 2006 state runner-up finish.

Ziglar, who retired from head coaching at age 67 but then stayed involved as an assistant for Timber Creek the past four seasons, is now mostly spending time with friends, family and his 99-year-old father.

He coached his high school alma mater, Boone for 23 seasons through 2012, winning 139 games and taking the Braves to a 2007 state runner-up finish; then took over at Hagerty, going 38-25 from 2013-18 with three playoff appearances in his final four seasons as a head coach.

Campana was a head coach at Bishop Moore (1983-88 and 2001), Edgewater (1990-99) and Flagler Palm Coast (2010-14) after launching his coaching career with stints at two North Carolina high schools. He is retired in Palm Coast and is now writing novels among other pastimes.

Monday’s presentations will be part of the club’s first bi-weekly dinner meeting of the 2023 season at the Tap Room Dubsdread Restaurant in College Park. The TD club has for years recognized high school players of the week and recognized prep coaches as a part of its meetings.

Its Monday guest speaker is Andy Staples, a former Lake Mary High offensive lineman now renowned as a college football reporter for On3.com and ESPNU.

Volleyball nail-biters

Winter Park warmed up for coach Stephanie Gibson’s 35th season as a head coach with two girls volleyball preseason victories that were as tight as they could be. The Wildcats topped Bishop Moore 26-24, 26-24, 26-24 and Lake Highland Prep 25-23, 27-25, 25-23 with every set won by the minimum two-point margin.

The Wildcats made things look a lot easier in their Tuesday season opener, beating Lake Mary 25-12, 25-12, 25-18. Senior standout Fallon Stewart had 12 kills to become the third player in program history to surpass 1,000 kills in her career. Callie Rivers and Beth Nordhorn are the other two.

Oviedo edged Lake Highland Prep 25-22, 27-25, 25-23 to improve to 2-0.

Talented TImber Creek (0-0) plays at Windermere (1-0) on Thursday night.

State champs score

Nine-time girls golf state champion Lake Mary made the most of a trip to Tennessee last weekend. The reigning Class 3A champ Rams dominated an eight-team, 18-hole tournament hosted by Tennessee state champ Ensworth at Greystone Golf Club, just west of Nashville.

There were seven scores in the 70’s on a course teeming with tough elevation changes and Lake Mary had four of those. Junior standout Ryleigh Knaub showed the way as individual medalist with a 1-under-par 71. Arenui Faana, a senior, placed second at 72 and their 143 combo was 8 shots better than second place Ensworth (151).

Tennessee’s high school format has three players per team with the two low scores counting. Florida’s format is five play, four count.

Lake Mary fielded two teams and Lauryn Finley shot 76 and ninth grader Elli Chon shot 79.

In boys preseason play, Circle Christian shot 289 in a best ball format to win the Preseason Top 10 boys golf tournament at Mission Inn. Dr. Phillips was second at 293, followed by Lake Mary (296), Spruce Creek (300), The First Academy (305), Windermere (315), Lake Nona (316), Winter Park (323), Windermere Prep (324) and Hagerty (338).

XC off and running

Saturday’s Mike Gibson Summertime Run preseason race featured a very tight finish in the girls team standings. Host Lake Mary won with 65 points, just ahead of Oviedo (67) and The Master’s Academy (69).

The individual winners were Master’s senior Ava Wyant (19 minutes, 44 seconds) for girls and Lake Nona senior Dylan Torres with a personal best of 16:16.4 in the boys 5,000-meter race. Oviedo won the boys team title ahead of Lake Mary.

East Ridge’s boys and Lake Minneola’s girls won at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meet at the National Training Center in Clermont.

Tavares ninth grader Cheyenne Thomas was the girls champ at 19:37.92. Timber Creek senior Brexton Hathaway ran 16:34.69 for the boys title.

Belen Jesuit a Miami, winner of a record 14 boys state titles and favored to win its seventh in a row, is signed up to run in Saturday morning’s Kowboy XC Invitational hosted by Osceola.

The Trinity Prep Invitational is also Saturday.

Buchalter Spirit Award

Alex Pring, a South Lake sophomore who played linebacker for the Eagles junior varsity football team and is now on varsity, will be recognized as the winner of the 2022-23 Orlando Sentinel Buchalter Spirit Award on Friday night.

Pring was born with just one arm, but that hasn’t stopped him from lifting weights and playing football.

The presentation will be made during halftime of South Lake’s season-opening home game against Matanzas by the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, which provides a $500 scholarship to recipients of the annual award named for renowned Sentinel sports writer Bill Buchalter, who died in 2021.

Alex Pring may only have one arm, but he plays football like an Ironman | Commentary

Extra points

• Published reports say former Ocoee basketball scoring machine Grant Riller is heading to China to play professionally for the Beijing Royal Fighters. His deal has an opt-out clause that would permit the guard to stay in America if an NBA team comes calling. Riller played seven games with the Charlotte Hornets in 2020-21 but injuries hampered his chances. He averaged 21.3 points last season for the Dallas Mavericks’ G-League Texas Legends team.

• Hagerty senior Jason Sanguinetti opened the boys bowling season with 267 and 238 games and teammate Alex Pantoja added a 253 as the Huskies turned in a very good 1,071 and 943 team totals in a win vs. Crooms Academy. Sanguinetti’s sophomore sister, Cami, rolled a 211 game in her Monday match.

• East River junior placekicker Jackson White kicked two field goals, went 3-for-3 on PAT kicks and had three touchbacks on kickoffs into the end zone in the Falcons’ 27-21 preseason football win against Astronaut.

• Former Lake Brantley great Sinclaire Johnson ran third place time of 4:01.09 in her preliminary heat at the track and field World Championships meet in Hungary. She slowed to 4:06.39 in the Sunday semifinal round and did not advance.

• Two football state champs will be home teams in Fort Lauderdale playing national TV games on Saturday. Chaminade-Madonna meets St. Frances of Maryland at noon (ESPN). St. Thomas Aquinas takes on last year’s consensus national champion, St. John Bosco of California, at 4 (ESPN2)

Varsity Content Editor Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.