MIDDLEBURG - Middleburg High sports has become a place of state champion finishes with dramatic titles in past seasons in softball, then volleyball and now with girls weightlifting added to the mix.
With a girls weightlifting team that was built from handfuls of athletes from sports around the Bronco campus, weightlifting coach Rhiannon Weiskopf has always maintained that the sport itself is competitive, but to bring in athletes from other sports makes the team more competitive.
"This team is built off athletes from a lot of different sports and that is a key for our success," said Weiskopf, who also won a district and region title along the way. "They know how to compete, not just lift."
At the girls weightlifting state meet, Weiskopf had no individual state champions, but a handful of top five finishers, led by a 1-2 combination at 154 of seniors Caylee Johnson and Madison Underwood, that made the top leaders work for their titles.
Johnson, a softball athlete, made it to the region semifinals in that sport, while Underwood finished third in the discus at the Class 3A track championships.
"We have a pretty deep rosters and having two girls in a bunch of weight classes helps to put up team points," said Weiskopf. "Our success comes from the fact that almost all of these girls are just tough athletes; many from other sports at the Middleburg and most of them very successful at that other sport."
On the boys side, coach Ryan Wolfe put the Broncos football team back into the playoffs for a third consecutive season with a 7-4 record to fulfill one of big goals of his four year stint at Middleburg.
"I would like to get that winning season on the books," said Wolfe, who had consecutive 5-5 seasons that, with a strong schedule, got the Broncos region playoff invites.
Middleburg's biggest strength on the season was from defensive end B.J. Carter who is headed to Iowa State University in the fall, plus a consistent quarterback in graduate Carson Stewart who amassed 1400 passing yards with 13 scores and just four interceptions.
In 2025, Wolfe will have a plethora of new faces to get to his fourth region playoff berth including a new quarterback, a new running back and a new defensive end.
In the wrestling room; boys and girls grapplers were a staple of strong wrestling for coach Coll Robertson and Jamie Harrison led by the third place finish by Cheyenne Cruce after two consecutive state titles and three third place finishes on the boys side from Nathan Harvey, Wyatt Leduc and Porter Loveland with Harvey and Loveland returning in 2025.
"It's an attitude that we changed from us just getting to state to us winning medals at state," said Loveland. "We build a bit each year."
For Cruce, a questionable call in her semifinal put her in the consolation brackets where she dominated to get her bronze medal, but also to solidify her legacy as the standard bearer for the Bronco program.
"I knew if I reacted to the call in my semifinal that I might cost myself a top three medal," said Cruce. "I wrestled as hard in the consolations as I wrestle in my finals. It's that important to me and the program."
For softball and volleyball, both past state champions in the last five years, the journey to get the repeat title proved more difficult than expected, but both teams put best efforts into region semifinal finishes with the volleyball team, finished at 22-5, with their region semifinal going to Beachside High, while the softball team, with a monster schedule, losing 2-1 in an eighth inning walk off semifinal to Matanzas.
Volleyball coach Meredith Forkum will graduate her daughter Brooke, a leading scorer for the team, while softball coach Ashley Houston will graduate a trio of state champion seniors from her 2022 state champion team; KK Hagan, Kerra Clarida and Caylee Johnson.