Seminole Vance wins state championship
“I feel so special,” Kelsey Vance said.
It is the feeling of a state champion.
The Southeast High weightlifter capped her senior season with a combined 395 pounds in the 169-pound weight class Saturday at the FHSAA Girls State Weightlifting Meet at River Ridge High School.
“She’s just a special kid,” Seminoles coach K.C. Dunlap said.
Vance has come full-circle with Dunlap.
A gymnast who came out for Dunlap’s weightlifting team as a freshman, Vance was Southeast’s lone qualifier as a freshman.
“She bombed out,” Dunlap said of Vance, who failed to make a lift in the 154-pound weight class. “She put in the work since.”
Saturday, Vance came full circle with Dunlap.
“At the end of the day, it was her and me alone again,” he said.
Vance improved her bench press to 190 pounds Saturday.
“Her bench finally came up,” Dunlap said. “She was stuck at 175 for the longest time. The last two weeks she blossomed to 190.”
All she had to do was make one lift in the clean and jerk at 190 to capture the title.
But Vance wanted more.
She recorded successful lifts at 190 and 205. Then she tried for the state record at 215. Vance had tied the state record of 210 at the Avon Park Meet just more than a month ago.
“Not quite,” she said after failing to get 215 to her shoulders. “My plan was to get all six lifts. I came close. if I had gotten all six lifts, I would have broken all the records I wanted. I didn’t want to take the easy way out. I really wanted that state record at 215, but I’m moving on to bigger and better things.”
“She wanted the 215 record, but the heck with that,” Dunlap said. “She’s a state champion and she’s going to the Junior Nationals.”
Vance will attend a Junior National Meet in two weeks in Minnesota.
Instead of the bench, it is the snatch along with the clean and jerk. Instead of pounds, it will be weighed in kilos.
A third-place finisher at the state meet in 2008, Vance has been working at the Olympic lifts since July.
She plans to attend the University of Central Florida to continue Olympic Style lifting.
“That was one of the big pulls for me to going there,” Vance said.
Of the 25 area weightlifters, 10 finished among the top six to receive medals.
Port Charlotte led the way with four, including a second-place finish from Michelle Ingman in the 129-pound weight class. Also reaching the stand for the Pirates were Kate Ingebretsen (third at 101), Holly Krzeminski (third at 154) and Brittnie Roy (sixth at 101).
They helped Port Charlotte finish fifth in the team scoring with 14 points, eight behind winner Lake City Columbia.
Venice had a perfect day, as all three Indians received a medal: Taylor Capasso (119) and Emily Daniels (154) took fifth, and Amanda Chappel (119) grabbed sixth.
Manatee’s Lacie Jensen took third before departing abruptly after learning her brother, Austin Jensen, was involved in an automobile accident on the East Coast.
Jacqueline Merino also received a medal for Southeast, taking fourth at 139, helping the Seminoles finish eighth with 10 points.
Wrestling her second season and first since she was a sophomore, Merino lifted 160 in the clean and jerk after never lifting more than 150, even in practice.
“Never. at any meet. I barely got 145,” she said. “But I was working so hard these past weeks. I was determined to place up here.
“Concentration. That’s it. Mentally I had to be there. Physically, I was always there. Mentally, I was never there.”
For Capasso, it was a quick climb to the top of the medal stand. Lifting for the first time as a senior to get stronger for volleyball season next season at the University of Tampa, she came out at the urging of Daniels, another medalist.
“I wish I did it all four years,” said Capasso, who improved by 10 pounds from her previous meet with a 130 in the bench and 145 in the clean and jerk. “I love it. I like competing against my self. It’s awesome. I love competition like this.”
Seminole Vance wins state championship