GREEN COVE SPRINGS – A strong contingency of girl wrestlers from around the county will be representing the strong wrestling aura of Clay County with the first-ever FHSAA sanction state championships to be held on the same weekend as the boys state championships; March 3,4,5 in Kissimmee.

In 2021, Florida joined Illinois and Wisconsin as additions to 26 states in America that have female wrestling.

Led by a triple threat of three Clay High Lady Blue Devils; Aubreanna Apple, Madisyn Blackburn and Jaidyn Vinson, all regional finalists and state meet qualifiers, the rest of the county contingency is chock full of talent forged by history.

“That’s what we do at Clay High,” said Apple, a junior, after her riveting district championship pin two weeks ago at Matanzas High School. “We want to prove we belong.”

Joining the Clay trio, from Middleburg, Orange Park, Oakleaf, Ridgeview and even Keystone Heights, the Clay County girls wrestling program jettisoned this season after last year’s trial run, per FHSAA allowances, to move ahead as a club-like season including state championships; one to Blackburn, a senior who recently signed a college scholarship to Brewton Parker College in Georgia, and one to Orange Park senior Andrea Smith, both top-ranked all season according to Kabra Wrestling, the official state ranking system.

Smith, yet to be beaten at 235, and Blackburn, with three losses on 27 wins, are the two trendsetters of the bunch with both smooth and confident on the mats thus far.

Smith has teammate Jasmine Hecht at 155, ranked 10th after spending much of the season at number one, to forge the aura of the big arena of state championships in the Silver Spur Arena next week.

The Clay trio earned one region title to Apple with two silvers with Blackburn finishing second with stomach issues into the region final.

For Smith, the region title came a week after a distric title against a familiar foe, Raines’ Jada Arnold with Smith winning via pin both times. Hecht, second at districts, finished fourth at regions.

For Middleburg, the freshman dynamic duo is Cheyenne Cruce (19-8) who follows big brother Austin, a junior 182 grappler for the Broncos, with a third place finish with Bradshaw, (24-7) at 110, taking third as well.

Both Cruce siblings will be entering new territory with another sister/brother duo in Oakleaf High’s Adrianna Barrientos (14-6), a sophomore, getting a distric title and a region fourth place finish at 105 while twin brother Keon just won his district title at 126 for the Knights en route to their first ever team title last week.

“We talk a lot at the kitchen table about our matches and there is a little jawboning about who could beat who, but it’s all good,” said Keon Barrientos. “We both want to go as far as we can.”

Ridgeview’s lone athlete was sophomore Cheyanne Moralez whoe finished at the consolation quarterfinals.

Clay remaining competitors were MiKayla Wyrick at 110, who lost her opener to Bradshaw; Alexis Buck at 140 who finished 2-2; Jaysie Garcia at 145, who finished at 1-2.

For Keystone Heights, who fielded their first official girls team, two seniors; Stamatia Papainannou (4-14) and Saige Dennis (12-22) both medaled at districts and wrestled into the consolation rounds at regions.