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ORANGE PARK - Girls weightlifting coach Addyson Mauldin ushered in a new era of Iron Girls for the Ridgeview High sports year, with track and field bringing a handful of titles to the Panthers' trophy case.
One noteworthy sport for the Panthers was a first girls and boys bowling teams that featured a state championship finish for Kathleen Waters, who displayed some great potential with a best score in four rounds of 227 in her final state championship game after three rounds of less than 200.
For Mauldin, who also was in the softball dugout with coach Angela Agurkis, she took over a weightlifting team chocked full of talent - Jada Hill, Jazmin Caraballo and Emily Silva - to take on the monumental task of unseating the state titles from county rivals Middleburg and Fleming Island.
"We know what we can do, we know what they can do," said Mauldin in an early season interview.
"My job is to put them in the best position to challenge the two state champions that just happen to be in our county.
Go figure." Mauldin, with her eye on the prize in post season competition, threw a monkey wrench or two in the repeat plans of both Middleburg and Fleming Island with a tie with both teams at state - 10-10-10 in Traditional, and just three points away from Fleming Island in Olympics, 13-10.
Quietly, at the 183 weight class, Caraballo just smiled, lifted and walked away with a state title in Traditional to be the top finisher amidst a handful of other names that got more headlines.
"I just went into every competition looking to get all three lifts in all three disciplines," said Caraballo, who won her title with 390 total pounds to defeat Lemon Bay's Khloe Evans by just 10 pounds.
In the final counts, Caraballo's consistency, with just one miss in each of the three lifts, was the difference with the early leaders all faltering.
New Smyrna Beach's Carli Hall, a pre-meet favorite, missed two of her clean and jerk lifts at 215 to open the door for Caraballo.
In Olympics, Caraballo again dominated with consistency, with Hall missing four of her six lifts.
Top 10 finishes at state included Hill, and a double top-10 at 154 Traditional with Ella Beaufort (sixth) and Ciera Neal (10th), with Neal (10th) and Hill (fourth at 110) both top 10 in Olympics.
At the region meet, Fleming Island and Ridgeview finished first and second in both Traditional and Olympic, with Middleburg in third to showcase the Clay County prowess.
Region titles went to Silva, Hill, Caraballo, Neal in Olympics, with Traditional region titles going to Silva, Caraballo and Beaufort.
At districts, in a packed house at Middleburg High and with two state championship teams on the floor, the Panthers got their first salvo across the bow with a second-place finish to Fleming Island (Middleburg third), sending a tremor across the Broncos gym.
"We are not done," said Mauldin's reaction after the first of the three post season clashes.
In cross country, one of the best stories of perseverance was Emily Turner, who got a state championship ticket in her fourth try.
She finished 62nd with a 20-minute, 20-second split.
She also earned a college scholarship.
On the boys side, Ridgeview track hurdler Bennett Smith and swimmers senior David Murphy and sophomore Jackson Strickland all put their names in the hopper for surprise finishers of the season.
Murphy and Strickland were in the tough Class 3A, which featured some of the top Florida swimmers from all classes.
Smith, a Class 2A championship hurdler, will return next year.
Smith advanced through districts and regions with an improvement of nearly a second from districts to regions, with sub-16-second finishes at regions and at state after finishing fourth at the districts in 16.42.
In the fall, football got a second win under departed head coach Merlin Smith to improve from a string of one win seasons.
New coach Jason Smith blasted the spring game with a 24-0 win to rev up the program.
The spring game win was the first for Ridgeview in a very long time, and it gave Panthers fans a breath of optimism for 2026.
Smith's dagger is defense and, in the spring game, an opening 65-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown by defensive end Drake Batts may have been the biggest play in recent Panthers' football history.
In volleyball, coach Sarah Andersen took over a 7-19 program to finish 15-7 in her first year, with Katie Cole being a massive presence above the net with 298 kills, along with Maddie Roach adding 173.
Anderson pushed defense and had five athletes with double-figure blocks, led by Adan Benda's 47, who returns in 2026.
Just like Mauldin in weightlifting, Anderson had to deal with the likes of Middleburg and Fleming Island being in the district slate, with Fleming Island beating Ridgeview in the district semifinal.
In golf, senior Hayden Skrzypczak was top finisher at districts with a 20th place finish.
Junior Callie Fenwich was 28th in the girls' districts.
In boys cross country, junior Robert Petrosky landed a personal best time at the districts with an 18:36.10.
In winter sports, senior girls basketball bid farewell to Narissa Blocton, who joined sisters Nia and Nacoya in the college ranks after the trio gave Panthers hoops fans strong play for nearly eight years.
Narissa, who averaged 23.1 points a game, and was a team leader in every game statistic on a four-win season.
She will play next at St.
Petersburg College, just an hour from her sisters at Florida Southern College.
Narissa was also a quarterback for the Flag Football team and was a high jumper for the track team while earning an FHSAA Triple Threat award.
In boys basketball, coach Isaiah Jackson and assistant Kadin Elmore muscled out a solid 11-14 season with a rivalry win against Middleburg early in the season and one against Clay late in the season.
The top scorer was senior Jamarion Dupont at 14.2 points a game, with three junior - Gavin Stechschulte, Aaron Carr and Justyn Cappas - all bringing 13-plus scoring averages back in 2026.
The girls' soccer team was 4-10-1 with a win over district champion Keystone Heights early, and a 2-1 win over Orange Park.
Boys soccer, under coach Paul Tomaro, played tough to a 6-7-1 slate, with Middleburg winning a tough 1-0 district match ending the season after Ridgeview beat Middleburg twice just two weeks earlier in the season.
Ridgeview wrestling had a handful of region qualifiers with Tanner Rogers, Samuel Costanza, Gavin Emile, Gage Warner, Ethan Merchant and Garrett Davis all getting to the second round of their state title chase.
Davis and Costanzas were seniors.
Girls wrestling had freshman Shyann Schioppa and senior Zoey Fowler qualified for the regions.
Softball had an up-and-down season at 10-14, led by seniors Nichole Deschamps, Saige Bialek and Hannah Smith.
The Panthers turned a four-loss opening to a five-game win streak to perk up the Panthers' dugout.
Baseball also had its good and bad at 9-15, with tough one-run losses to a handful of state playoff contenders including Fleming Island, Baker County, Christ's Church Academy and Baldwin in 10 innings.
In tennis, Petrosky finished with a 13-1 record, with teammate William Walker at 13-4.
The girls' top players were Elizabeth Pryor at 10-7 and Zoey Talley 3-0 at No.
3.
The girls finished at 10-8-1 with a region semifinal finish loss to Nease.
In boys weightlifting, Wyatt Moore got to the state meet at 119 pounds.
Hoops teams getting elite challenges in Gainesville By Randy Lefko [email protected] GAINESVILLE - Area basketball teams got a chance to measure up against some top-ranked state teams in the past three weekends as part of the Florida Association of Basketball Coaches Boys and Girls Showcases.
"This is a good starting point to see just who is going to be ready to go in November," said Oakleaf High girls basketball coach Fred Cole, who was in Gainesville for three days of competition on FABC Girl Showcase.
"We are going to have a smaller team than most here and during our season so we get a good chance to see how they will play against top teams very early.
It's a great tournament to just get some film on kids that are here and our own team." Oakleaf, was joined in the girls showcase by Clay, St.
Johns Country Day School and Fleming Island at the Alachua Sports Center June 18-20, played one of the best games of the weekend with a tough 47-43 loss to American Heritage (Delray), a 16-6 record last year in Class 3A and a region playoff finisher.
"We left a lot of points on the court with missed layups, but I'm glad to see that the team was making steals and moving the ball to get to the layups," said Cole, noting Nyla Parsons and Brinkley Todd as key personnel on the court.
"We will have a lot of young, aggressive players again and they needed to see what good teams do.
We'll be alright." Oakleaf finished with a win over Wildwood, 42-38, with losses to Bloomingdale, 43-32, and Blountstown, 50-42.
Blountstown was 25-3 last year and a Rural Class state semifinalist.
Bloomingdale was 25-3 last year in Class 6A and a region finalist last year.
Wildwood was 15-6 in Rural Class and a region semifinal finish.
"We had a tough draw, but it showed us where we are," Cole said.
"We played well and got points, we'll work on being consistent." For Clay High, coach Doug Deters had wins of 42-25 over (7A) Alonso and 30-14 over (5A) North Fort Myers with losses of 31-23 to (3A, 17-6) Berkeley Prep and 42-19 to 7A-West Orange.
"The expectations going in was to compete hard and impress college coaches," said Deters, who had Orange Park High transfer Kai Longmire under the boards.
"Annaliese Hovda was the star of the game with 23 points and a perfect four of four from 3-point range.
Alia Chmura continued to impress with her athletic ability, and transfer Kai Longmire showed she is a potential game changer for the Blue Devils this season." St.
Johns Country Day School, with coach Tyler Miller fielding a team of just six players, led by scoring machine Kendall Proffitt and without three graduated seniors, took on the likes of Jupiter (7A, 19-7, region semifinalist), San Jose Prep (2A, 20-10, Final Four finisher), (4A, 9-18) Eastside and Hilliard (Rural, 24-6, region finalist).
"We had some kids on vacation, but I wanted to see how we could do with playing mistake-free ball and teamwork," said Miller, who was 16-9 in Class 1A last year with just seven players on his roster.
"We got a tough draw and we will hold our own." The Spartans stayed within 10 points of three games with Jupiter winning 50-28 in their opener.
Fleming Island, without lead scorer Gianna Crawford (knee injury), finished at 2-2 with wins over (7A, 20-8, region finalist) Sumner, 42-33, and (1A, 20-8, region semifinalist) Altamonte Christian, 49-28, with newly transferred guard Emma Crowe (from Orange Park High), leading the way with senior Sarah Stofsky and junior Seven Gourdet pushing the pace for coach Michael Hayward.
The Golden Eagles had losses to Florida High, 39-30, and (2A, 16-7, region semifinalist) West Shore, 37-34.
In boys basketball, Fleming Island played in the FABC Conrad P.
Foss Live Period Academic Showcase on June 12-14, and Orange Park played in the June 26-28 FABC Boys Showcase.
Fleming Island, the Class 5A runner-up last year, dominated in their four games with wins of 70-36 over (3A, 22-7 region finalist) Cardinal Gibbons, 64-50 over (5A, 24-7, lost to Fleming Island state semifinal) Tampa Jesuit, 55-47 over (7A, 17-11) Olympia and 61-37 over (6A, 12-11) Miami Southridge.
Orange Park, with Markell Campbell and Derek Aponte leading the attack, got a 47-45 win over (4A, 13-15) Booker High after losses to Cape Coral (5A, 23-5, region quarters) and (7A, 14-12) University of Orlando with a Sunday 42-40 win over (Rural, 23-8 region finalist) Ponce De Leon.
"We didn't have sharp passes against Cape Coral," said Orange Park coach Derek Kurnitsky.
"We got a lot of young players this year and have pushed them through our own summer league.".