TALLAHASSEE - Clay High rolled right up to the last batch of matches, but fell short by a point, 154-153, in the region 1-2A wrestling championships to New Smyrna Beach on Saturday at Tallahassee Lincoln High School.
Middleburg finished third with a 138 team total with Winter Springs fourth at 124 and Lincoln fourth at 122.
Fleming Island advanced three wrestlers to the state meet; all state meet returners with hopes of getting the elusive next podium spot.
For Orange Park's Raiders, under first year coach Tyler Dehart, one Raider wrestler emerged as a region runnerup and will get his shot as a wild card medal contender.
As wrestling now prep for the upcoming state individual championships in Kissimmee's Silver Spurs Arena, Clay County will represent with Clay sending Jacob Bucci at 120 and Landon Martin as region champions with Martin's finals match against Michael Aker of Ponte Vedra a scramble that ended with Martin scoring four third period points to win 4-0.
Bucci, second last year, won his finals match with a 5-1 win over Gavin Samons of Gulf Breeze with both grapplers having more than 40 wins for the season; 42-3 for Bucci; 49-4 for Samons.
Also returning is Rylan Herrera at 132 who battled through a region injury to finish fourth to advance.
The Blue Devils, who lost team points with district champion Benjamin Mitts at 106 out due to an illness that caused him to miss his weigh in, will also send, with top four finishes; Drew Holmquist at 157 with a third place 8-3 win over Fort Walton Beach's Landon Burbidge after two pins and a 16-0 tech fall to the final; Brady Glavin, at 144, lost to New Smyrna's Jonathan Bruner via a 20-3 tech fall to sway some team points to New Smyrna; Rylan Herrera, at 132, second last year also, with a fourth place finish after a medical forfeit in his match to Middleburg's Micah Thomas; Vonte Burke at 126, who was third with a 14-3 major decision over Gulf Breeze's Keegan Deeds. Burke lost a tough 6-5 decision to Lincoln's Zakary Jurado in his second match then battled back with a 19-1 tech fall and pin to the third place match.
With Mitts out, Burke, Glavin and Holmquist join coach Jim Reape at state to improve on his 14th place finish last year, for a first visit with Burke, ranked seventh at 28-8, losing his second round match to fourth ranked Zakary Jurado of Lincoln, fifth last year, then winning four in a row to a 14-3 major decision over the 18th ranked Deeds.
Glavin, seventh ranked at 32-3, lost in his 144 final to New Smyrna Beach's Jonathan Bruner, the third seed and a sixth place finisher at 138 last year.
Holmquist, fifth ranked, is Reape's darkhorse pick to make a podium finisher at state with his semifinal loss to Middleburg Leduc sending him to the consolations and an 8-3 win over Fort Walton Beach's Landon Burbidge, 10th ranked in 2A, giving him third place.
Middleburg, eighth last year in 2A, will send region champion Nathan Harvey, a sophomore at 113, who beat Joe Tucker of Lincoln 9-2 for his second trip to state after a two match exit, with Thomas, third at 132.
Wyatt Leduc, fourth at 144 last year at state, continued to dominate at 157 with a pin in his region final over Matanzas Mason Obama after two 16 point tech falls and a pin to the final. Sean Blouin, fourth at 165, gets his first state ticket after losing his opening match, then ripping off three wins (one a consolation semi over Clay's Tison Rivers) to the third place a match; a 10-5 loss to Chiles Cooper Hill.
Harvey, who pinned top ranked Garrett Ferguson of Gulf Breeze, fifth last year at 106, in the third period of the 113 semifinal, was ranked sixth with Tucker fifth at 113.
Porter Loveland, at 215, ranked in the top five all season (third in February), got second with an injury forfeit for second with a semifinal win over New Smyrna's Kyle Nilsson, who beat Loveland at the Flagler Rotary. Loveland forfeited to Ponte Vedra's Talan Babin, a junior ranked fifth, after being head-butted in the semifinal against Nilsson. Top ranked is Harper Noel of Heritage, a senior with just five matches, 5-0. Noel, who lost to Middleburg's Tucker Cody in the consolation semifinals last year, finished fifth at 215 last year with Cody third.
"Porter got head butted and got knocked out against the New Smyrna guy and we did not know if a concussion happened," said Middleburg coach Coll Robertson. "We got into the final and got to state so we forfeited out to be safe."
For Fleming Island, sixth in 2A last year, their trio of Sebastian Bonachea, Laird Duhaylungsod and Kevin Reyes has been laser focused on returning to state with Reyes foregoing a shot at a third weightlifting state title to compete.
"I got a football scholarship and I did not want to risk a weightlifting injury with that," said Reyes while at the Flagler Rotary earlier in the season. Reyes, now 20-2, had his two main competitors from last year; Logan McAlister from Mosley, also 20-2, and Ryder Luck, 31-2, from Chiles in his bracket with Chiles Ethan Toomey, 36-13, also a top senior competitor.
In the Kabra Wrestling state Class 2A rankings at 285, Luck is ranked third, Reyes is ranked fourth, McAlister is ranked sixth and Toomey is ranked ninth to promise that all will be factors in determining the eventual state champion. Top ranked is Seth TShiams of North Fort Myers at 40-1 and, as No. 2, is Jaxon Newton of Charlotte at 24-2.
Luck is the defending state champion with Newton the runnerup with Tshiams fifth and McAlister seventh. Luck beat Tshiams in the semifinal with Reyes opening with a loss to Gaither senior Carmine Morton then losing to McAlister in his consolation bracket.
At 150, Laird Duhaylungsod, 31-6, has been methodically carving his path to improve on his fifth place finish last year at 150 with Gulf Breeze's Gavin Cohen, second ranked above the third ranked Duhaylungsod, the runnerup with a 7-1 win by Duhaylungsod. Cohen is a North Carolina transfer, fourth at 144 last year in North Carolina, with 91 wins heading into the state meet.
Top ranked at 150 is Somerset junior Tristan Sainz, 37-1, who's best match was a third place finish at the 2024 Knockout over Tampa Jesuit's Mason Basile, third at 144 last year as a freshman with a 7-0 win over Middleburg's Wyatt Leduc.
At 132, Bonachea, 39-2, has been untouchable since December with a recent win over Clay's Rylan Herrera, two tech falls and a pin to the region title over Winter Springs' Rudley Villareal, a freshman ranked 19th with Bonachea number two behind Lake Gibson's Christian Fretwell, the runnerup at 138 last year.
For Orange Park, Terrion Butler, ranked 21st at 190 at 26-6, blew through his bracket with a pin, a 14-9 win, a pin and a finals pin in the first period over Matthew Sinclair of Fort Walton Beach, a state qualifier at 157 last year now ranked fifth at 190.
In region 1-3A, Oakleaf finished 11th in team points and will be sending three wrestlers; Connor Barnes at 113, Ghais Cooper at 165 and Bryant Taylor at 215 to the Class 3A championships with Barnes, ranked ninth, second, and Cooper, ranked 17th, and Taylor, ranked eighth, both third.
For the girls state wrestling, Middleburg will have Lily Bradshaw, Sarah Walsh, Cyndi Almont and Cheyenne Cruce with Oakleaf sending Kailani Barrientos and Zoe Goode.