FLEMING ISLAND - For a fall season of high school sports, Clay County provided a plethora of outstanding performances in all fall sports; football, golf, cross country, volleyball, swimming, diving and even bowling for the first time ever.

In a look at the spectacular finishes of fall 2025, Fleming Island High senior football player Sebastian Cruz was a unanimous decision as the Clay Today/ClayRadio.com fall player of the year by Clay Today Sports Editor Randy Lefko and ClayRadio.com's Tim Mooney, both hosts of the ClayRadio.com Clay County Sports Report.

"We had Sebastian Cruz on our radio program early in the season and the energy he had just talking about the upcoming football season was incredible," Mooney said. "He was ready to make big plays and made quite a few for Fleming Island football fans."

Cruz, a starting safety on the defensive side of the ball for hard hits from 10-12 yards away, speeds to cover the speediest of enemy receivers and uses leadership on the field to get his teammates to play at a high level.

"I probably should have played him more on offense, but we needed him on defense," said Fleming Island head football coach Tom Macpherson. "His speed was his best asset, and he knew how to get to the ball under control very quickly on defense as well as when to put his foot in the ground to break from the line of scrimmage or off a kickoff return to add yardage."

On the season, Cruz had a handful of 60-plus kick returns; two near 100 yarders for scores that were negated by penalty, but those did not deter opposing coaches from unwittingly testing their kick coverage teams against the Cruz instincts.

Though Cruz was adept at the long, breakaway speed runs that resulted in either scores or positive field position for the Fleming Island offense, Cruz' prowess on fourth and short situations was more apparent.

Utilizing what Cruz called the 'Hammer' offense set, where offensive linemen shift to an unbalanced line just prior to snap and Cruz got the ball in Wildcat formation, Cruz's toughness inside the five-yard line plunge was as impressive as his speed runs down the sideline. Cruz finished with 23 carries on offense for just 106 yards, but with six touchdowns.

For the rest of the fall sports, with a litany of top performances ranging from golf; Tyler Mawhinney with five birdies closing down an 11-stroke gap in the final nine holes on day two of the Class 2A championship tournament and Fleming Island freshman golfer Sophia Moody taking fifth at the Class 2A tournament; state titles to swimmers William Shoemaker of Fleming Island and Noah Stotler of Clay; cross country getting a seventh in state for Fleming Island boys and senior state meet finish for Ridgeview senior Emily Turner; a state meet berth by Ridgeview bowler Katie Waters in a first varsity season ever in Clay County; volleyball with strong seasons from Middleburg, led by Camden Rahn, and Fleming Island, led by Lauren Brosky; and football with two teams earning region playoff berths.

Mooney and Lefko picked their top three sports performances for the fall 2025 season with Cruz their unanimous choice for number one.

At No. 2 for Lefko, Fleming Island senior golfer Tyler Mawhinney's five birdie flurry in the final nine holes of the second round of the Class 2A championship tournament —that fell one stroke shy of both a third state title for the Golden Eagles and a second individual title for Mawhinney —proved to be one of the more exciting finishes in the fall sports slate.

"Here's a guy that traveled around the country playing international level golf and still returning to lead his high school team back to the state tournament for a third state title run," said Fleming Island coach Bruce Cloud. "He knew he didn't have the depth behind him this year and would need an extraordinary performance to get those two titles. He surely left his legacy."

For Mooney, his No. 2 performance came from Middleburg High running back Gino Addison's 285 yards, four touchdown effort in the Broncos overtime win over district rival Beachside, 37-36. Addison finished the season with 1103 yards and 18 touchdowns.

At No. 3 for Lefko was Clay High quarterback Landon Martin's 269 yards rushing and 200 yards passing in a Blue Devil win over Fernandina Beach, with Martin a steady contributor all season for the Blue Devils offense via air and on the ground. Martin had two pass touchdowns and three rush touchdowns in the Fernandina Beach win. Martin showed off his family toughness; his brother Dominic was a linebacker/state wrestler, and his sister Aubri was a nationally ranked volleyball libero still playing in college. Martin accounted for nearly all of the Blue Devils' scoring in a tough season with a new coach.

Number three for Mooney was Oakleaf High senior quarterback Jack McKissock who directed the Knights to a strong season finish and a second region playoff berth as a transfer two years ago from The First Academy in Orlando, a Class 1A program.

"He may not have had big numbers, but he was consistent and was close to the same numbers as last year and got the Knights into the playoffs a second time," Mooney said. "He was victimized at the Nease game by a ferocious Nease defense plus untimely dropped passes but kept fighting to the very end."

Also considered for an honorable mention, for Mooney, was Oakleaf High running back Fareed "Buck" Coleman's 345 yards, five-touchdown performance in the Knights' 45-41 win over ED White. Coleman finished with 1301 yards with 11 scores and seven 100-plus rush games.

An honorable mention for Lefko was Fleming Island High's boys cross country team, which had a top five ranking for most of the season —fueled by the 1-2-3 running of Andrew Boyer, JP Strombeck and Marcos Serrano all season.

Strombeck, who was unable to run in his region race last year for Oakleaf due to a heart ailment, recovered and rebuilt his engine to become the top finisher for the Golden Eagles at the Class 3A championship race that saw Fleming Island finish seventh in team point.