With the boys weightlifting season ramping up, the team is busy preparing and gearing up for what they hope is a long season.

With the success the team has had during the preceding years, the precedent for success on the state level has been established. Even with the major turnover that comes with high school athletics, the goal remains the same.

“[Our goal] is just to make it to states, that’s it,” senior Brandon Bonin said.

The path to the state meet runs through success in the regional and district meets, but the work the team puts in right now is crucial to finding the late season success that they covet. This means that in this growth period the team prioritizes progression not victories in early meets.

“We don’t really focus on dual meets that we do, our goal is conference and the advancement meets like districts and beyond,” Coach Daniel Evans said.

These early season meets offer an opportunity for lifters to improve their PRs as well as improve their technique. Luckily for the Lions there are a variety of experienced seniors on the team who can act as pseudo-coaches.

“[The upperclassmen are] good role models for the younger athletes to look up to, plus they are good about helping with technique and motivation,” Evans said.

The experience of the team also amounts to a positive team environment that helps promote success and growth while putting just enough pressure on the lifters to provide the best results.

“The presence of the team alone gives me more strength. When I’m training alone, I tend to try less because I know that nobody is watching,” senior Logan Martir said. “But when the team is there, I’m held accountable. I want to put in more effort to complete a lift because I know that they’re watching.”

Technique is crucial to finding success especially when some of the boys on the team participate in two different types of lifting: Olympic and Traditional. While both styles include the Clean and Jerk, Olympic utilizes the Snatch while traditional’s second lift is the bench press.

“The two movements in traditional weightlifting require more variety of training and programming as compared to Olympic weightlifting,” Martir said.

The training and technique that the team works on now helps propel them toward their personal and team goals as the Lions begin their long march to hopeful success in the state meet.

“My personal goal for the season is to win the Florida state championship, benching 375 lbs and clean & jerking 275 lbs,” Martir said.