OAKLEAF - Oakleaf High football took a devastating blow to their pysche last season with a crushing 45-7 loss in the region quarterfinals to Nease. Both were nearly identical with 8-2 regular season records and they featured rugged power, explosive highlight reels and a gauntlet schedule.

"They just out-physicaled us, plain and simple," said Oakleaf coach Chris Foy, who was attempting an encore following an astounding 2024 season that ended 25-19 loss at the region finals against Gainesville Buchholz. "We have thought about what they did to us from about the bus ride home until now. We will be different this season."

Buchholz will host Oakleaf on Oct. 23 in a regular season game.

"My, on my, I guess we will find out real quick if we are ready for that," said Foy, referring to his schedule that ups the tenacity level a notch or two with two preseason halves against two more powerhouses DeLand and Columbia on Friday [Aug. 1. DeLand,  12-1 last year with a 7A Final Four appearance, astoundingly returned 18 of 22 starters as seniors, and with a junior running back Taihj Moore, who had 25 TDs and about 1,500 rushing yards. The Bulldogs lost a 40-31 thriller to eventual 7A runner-up Lake Mary on a pick six in the fourth quarter. DeLand is routinely a top-tier football program, including in 2009 when it went 13-2 and finished as the 6A runner-up.

Columbia, always a contender, was 9-3 in Class 4A last year, with a region semifinal loss to Choctowhatchee. Under coach Brian Allen, the Tigers, who returned last year after he a two-year hiatus for family health issues, were 9-3 last year with four 10-win seasons in the past decade.

"If we want to be the team that people want on their schedule as a big game, we have to win teams on our schedule that other teams want on their schedule," Foy said.

Prophetic as that may be for Foy, the rollercoaster gets steeper after the preseason scrambles with unbeaten Raines High coming to Oakleaf with their Class 4A championship belts.

One factor is that Raines graduated 29 players from last year's 14-0 squad.

"They are still the defending champions," Foy said. "Don't know yet if we are at the ready for Raines. We go for that 1% better everyday."

Rosset, McWatters, Reynolds get triathlon wins

By Randy Lefko, randy@claytodayonline.com

CAMP BLANDING - The eerie fog that settled at the Kingsley Lake swim starting point gave the nearly 300 triathletes concern as the Hammerhead Olympic Triathlon (HOT) and sprint triathlon races had a delayed start. Officials didn't want to take a chance with so many athletes in the lake without being able to see them.

"It is almost like one of those horror movie scenes out there," said Jessica Acton, 51, an former Oakleaf Junior High physical education teacher and now a UPS truck driver who was attempting her first sprint triathlon. "I'm kind of glad they are delaying a bit."

As the sun settled in and broke up the fog, athletes from all around North Florida area splashed and dashed into Kingsley Lake for either a one-mile swim or a quarter-mile swim, that preluded either a 25- or 11-mile bike ride, then got followed by either a 6.2- or a 3.1-mile run depending on an athlete's choice of either an Olympic or sprint triathlon.

"This will be my first Olympic distance race since I started doing triathlons after high school," said Kayleigh McWatters, 22, and one of Middleburg High's best multi-sport athletes. "I decided I've done the training, now it's just time to give it a go."

McWatters gave it a go while seeing her mom, Lynne McWatters, 51, pass by on the bike and running a few times as she competed in the sprint race.

For the McWatterses, both earned age group wins in their respective races - Kayleigh in Olympics with a time of 2 hours, 44 minutes, 39.5 seconds, while mom Lynne won in the 50-54s with a 1:17.36.6 split in the sprint race.

Also in the 50-54, Acton was runner-up with a first-time finish time of 1:25.48 to get her first triathlon medal.

In the sprint race, Middleburg High sophomore cross country and track ace Lauren Rosset, a sophomore this year as cross country begins in a week, blasted the entire field with a sterling win in the women's division with a 1:09.24 time. She also finished seventh overall among the 112 athletes, men and women.

"Please don't tell coach Kenneth Yancey about me being here," Rosset said afterward. "He'll probably be mad if he reads it in the Clay Today."

Rosset's concern comes jokingly after she and her two Middleburg High running mates, Adam Ruoss and Rowan Avery, both 18, were at the St. Augustine Triathlon last week, and they had similar outstanding results. Ruoss finished fourth in his age group at the HOT with a 1:11.25.7 split for 15th overall, while Avery was seventh in his age group in 1:17:04.7.

Also joining the high school athlete party at Camp Blanding was Fleming Island High's Brooke Reynolds, 19, a state meet athlete in swimming and cross country. She's headed to college after winning her age group in 1:15:14.8, just slightly ahead of Fleming Island weightlifter Izzy "The Hammer" Williams, who came across the finish line second in 1:26.50.2.

Reynolds, who shared the field with a 20:26-minute split for her 3.1-mile segment, also had the fastest bike split with an un-aerodynamic mountain bike with a 44:43-minute split. Williams was also on a mountain bike with sneakers on her pedals finished with a 44:50 split.

"That was the hardest part with that heavy bike," Reynolds said after the race. "I didn't know this Camp Blanding course had so many long up hills."

The Ferendo duo - Ashley, 34, and Vincent, 14 - also won medals. Ashley won the women's 30-34 group with a 1:38:57.6 split, while Vincent was second in his age group in 1:44:48.1.

In the men's 50-54, Orange Park's Rabi Singh won in 2:47:42.5 in the Olympics race.