ORANGE PARK - The normally raucous St. Johns Country Day School gymnasium was buzzing last week with cheerleaders and athletic director John Sgromolo excitedly announcing the names of the athletes about to compete.

But the fanfare was not for basketball or volleyball, as would be usual for Spartans sports.

"I learned from an old coach friend of mine that started the sport in Tennessee and the best thing he told me was to make it exciting for the athletes; make it an event," said St. Johns Country Day School's wrestling coach Hunter Hill (yes, wrestling at St. Johns). "We had the cheerleaders, the fans were excited, the light show on the intros and all that. And, to top it off, the team wrestled tough."

For the Spartans, who invited Orange Park High to participate in the debut home wrestling match for St. Johns, the expected rough and tumble attack from the Class 2A Raiders team was all that was expected.

"I appreciate their coach Tyler Dehart bringing the guys down here for this and I appreciate that they made us battle," Hill said. "Wrestling is such a great sport and this crowd was into it, and we hope the program can grow from here."

In the match, with St. Johns' region qualifier Howard Hill, Hunter's son, back in action and ranked fifth in Class 1A after an injury short circuited his region shot at a state ticket last year, and a second region qualifier Israel DeJesus, both led a cadre of new faces on to the mat against the seasoned veterans from Orange Park.

"You know, it's all about the team even though wrestling is considered an individual sport if you think about it," Hill said. "I wrestled last year on my own with no real team behind me to train with and compete for but tonight was great having the school supporting us and my teammates on the sidelines cheering. It's a whole new experience to compete for your team."

In the final tally, Orange Park, with a handful of forfeits by the undermanned St. Johns team, won a 42-39 decision. Fleming Island transfer Roman Ortez got the first Spartan team win with a tech fall at 132 with Israel DeJesus following with the first team pin for the Spartans team over Robert Quintero, putting St. Johns up 10-0.

DeJesus ignited three pins in a row for the Spartan team with Hill the final six pointer giving St. Johns an impressive 27-0 lead.

"We were just feeding off each other out there," said Howard "Colt" Hill. "It was kind of cool to come off the mat and have a bunch of teammates hooting and hollering for me."

Orange Park got three forfeits to follow to get the score to 27-18 with Raider football player Ethan Strother getting a first period pin to a 27-24 score as the Raiders looked to take control of the upper weights.

Two more forfeits for Orange Park added 12 points to a 36-27 Raider lead before seventh grader Bryce Fiore, ranked number one in Class 1A by KabraWrestling.com, pinned to get the score to 36-33 in what looked to be a furious finish at the 120 and 126 weight classes. Fiore is a former Lake Highland Prep wrestler. Lake Highland Prep was a dominant former Class 1A program that no longer competes in FHSAA.

The teams exchanged pins to the final score; 42-39.

Around the state

Border Wars: South Walton Beach

In South Walton Beach, Middleburg High's boys wrestling ran the gamut against some of the best wrestling from Florida, Georgia and Alabama. They finished with an 80.5-80.5 tie after day one with St. Paul's of Louisiana before finishing day two with a third-place team finish, 246.5 points behind Georgia state AAA champion duals and traditional powerhouse Jefferson High at 295 and Gulf Breeze at 254 points. Jefferson has a string of nearly 20 state titles in both duals and traditional wrestling out of Georgia.

On day two, in finals, were Jonathan Harp, champion at 106; Micah Thomas, runner-up at 144 and Porter Loveland, champion at 215. On day one, Middleburg tied with Louisiana powerhouse St. Paul's at 80.5 points apiece with Jesuit second and Jefferson fourth. Teams wrestled in one of four pools to determine brackets for day two wrestling.

Let Freedom Ring: Orlando girls IBT

Walsh gets title

Middleburg High's third ranked girls wrestling team traveled to the home of the defending state champions at Freedom High in Orlando and came home with a tied-for-fifth team finish with Georgia powerhouse Camden County. Freedom won decisively with 237 points with runner-up St. John Neumann at 140.5. South Dade was third at 132, Flagler Palm Coast fourth at 100 and Camden and Middleburg fifth with 96. Ridgeview also competed with two wrestlers: Shyann Schioppa and Zoey Fowler.

Middleburg fielded eight wrestlers with Cyndi Almonte at 155, Fallon Dames third at 115, Kadyn Parker at 110, Lillian Bradshaw fourth at 100, Memphis Moses at 120, Riley Toomey at 140, Sarah Walsh first at 135 and Toni Silcox at 105.

Friday Knight Lights

Oakleaf third at home

Oakleaf High coach Rory Roderick packed his gym with the likes of Flagler Palm Coast, Orange Park, Camden County and Mandarin to host his Friday Knight Lights duals tournament and the Knights finished with a third-place team win match over Orange Park. Flagler Palm Coast defeated Camden County 47-26 in the championship match with Oakleaf winning 61-18 over Orange Park for third. Mandarin was fifth.

Oakleaf state placers Connor Barnes and Sebastian Bonachea were both undefeated for the afternoon.

Danny Byron Invite

Fleming Island back in action with new coach

After a dual meet loss to Flagler Palm Coast last week, Fleming Island took a handful of wrestlers to the prestigious Danny Byron Invite in Orlando for a rugged two-day wrestlefest against some of the southeast United States' best; including the likes of South Dade, Camden County and Miami Southwest, and got a taste of big time wrestling for new coach Randall Willetts. Willetts will be trying to resurrect the dominance of Fleming Island wrestling after a few tumultuous seasons and off seasons put Willetts in charge.

"I'm here to put my own team together and not worry about what happened before I got here," Willetts said, a U.S. Army infantry soldier with Afghanistan experience. "I think my military experience may have been a part of my selection, but I'm a Dan Gable kind of a coach where I want conditioning to be the base of our training."

Among the returners for Willetts for 2026 are JD Linn and Matthew Braddock with a slew of new, young faces to fill the weight classes. Fleming Island also had a handful of state qualifiers from last year transfer to other schools; top among them is eighth placer (by injury default) Sebastian Bonachea, now returned to Oakleaf High School. Bonachea was a district and region champion and also a Flagler Rotary champion last year.

"I know very little about what has happened here and I wish the best for those wrestlers who made the decision to go elsewhere," said Willetts, 43. "My focus is on the boys that are here right now."

At Danny Byron, Willetts reported mostly White Pool finishes for his troops with Linn third at 138, Brant Rountree second at 157, Sebastian Campbell second at 199 and Gio Ansaldi second at 106. Thirds went to Jayden Pfeiffer at 285, Landon Johnson at 126 and Keaton Mendelsohn at 113.

"I saw guys battling hard to the end against top wrestlers," Willetts said.

At Danny Byron, wrestlers on Friday wrestle to get into a Gold, Blue or White bracket based on their records from Day One. Fleming Island will travel to St. Augustine on Saturday, then head further south to the even tougher Knockout Christmas Classic in Orlando.