KISSIMMEE - Clay High wrestling coach Jim Reape, no stranger to state wrestling success, got medals from all six of his athletes led by senior Jacob Bucci snagging a third place medal while Middleburg, with five wrestlers on the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, punched in with three third place finishes in one of the strongest medal caches in recent Clay County history.

"Each year, it gets tougher, and with a couple of guys dinged up here and before we got here, I'm super proud of our guys to be coming home with a handful of medals," said Reape, as he stood among his Hall of Fame brethren prior to the start of the championship rounds on Saturday. "There are a lot of variables to win a state title as an individual and it's tougher as a team. We enjoy this day and we start thinking about next year."
With Somerset taking the team title in Class 2A with 173 points over Tampa Jesuit's 166 and Lake Gibson third at 149, the rest of the field was in double digits with Clay eighth at 64.5, Lincoln ninth at 62 and Middleburg 10th at 55 points. Fleming Island, with three wrestlers, finished 15th with Orange Park having one wrestler, Terrion Butler, who lost his first two matches.
Clay had some bad luck with last year's second placer Rylan Herrera out with a concussion from the previous week and with a second state runnerup from last year, Jacob Bucci, also banged up with a second knee injury. Bucci was hampered last year at the start of the season then stormed to finish with the second place finish.
"This is my senior season and I wasn't going to watch from the stands as my teammates were battling on the floor," said Bucci, the region champion in a decisive three pins to the final and a 5-1 region title win. "I knew I was in great shape to get the job done, but my knee went out again and that kind of took some explosiveness away."
Bucci fought back from a semifinal loss to Tampa Jesuit's Malachi Ortiz, the eventual 120 runnerup, via pin to pin to the third place match where he had to win in overtime against Bradenton senior Matthew Ireland, who came in with an astounding 72-7 season record.
"I thought about all the tough practices I've ever had with coach Reape and wanted to go out knowing I left everything on the floor," said Bucci.
Clay finished with a fourth place medal to 175 senior Landon Martin, who lost by late pin to Jensen Beach's Brayden Hogg, a fifth place to Drew Holmquist at 157, who lost in his consolation semifinal to Middleburg's Wyatt Leduc, a fifth to Brady Glavin at 144 who faced off twice against Felix Varela's Jordan Pineda with a 13-2 loss in the fifth place match, and a seventh place finish to Vonte Burke at 126 who lost his first, but won three in a row to get his medal berth.
"At Clay, we all wrestle to the final whistle," said Burke, a senior. "I wanted to leave with a medal and when I lost the first match, I knew my day was going to be rough."
For the finals, Fleming Island senior Laird Duhaylungsod finished off his chase to improve on his fifth place finish of last year, but fell excruciatingly short with an overtime period and three rounds of ref's position battles before falling to Somerset's Tristan Sainz, who entered with a one loss season to Duhaylungsod's 38-7 slate.
"We have never seen this guy one on one and knew just a little bit about how he got here," said Fleming Island coach Nick Gibson. "We knew he didn't like to take a lot of shots and thought Laird's defensive skills would make the match a close one."
In the final, both wrestlers seemed content to stay on their feet with neither venturing toward attacking the legs of the other for the first two periods as Duhaylungsod's first three matches ended with fast, furious pins and a 17-1 clinic in his semifinal.
Sainz advanced with a first match pin, but had his next two matches ending with a 17-2 win and a 10-2 major decision.
With wrestling fans anticipating a high scoring free for all match, the Sainz scored first off an escape from the center circle, with Duhaylungsod getting his own quick stand up escape to start the third period, then getting a quick flurry near the period's finish that Sainz held off to put the match into overtime.
Neither was able to escape in their overtime referee's position starts in overtime for the first two stanza, but Sainz got away from Duhaylungsod in the third attempt to finish the match.
Fleming Island had 132 third placer from last year, Sebastian Bonachea win his first match, but reinjure a shoulder and eventually forfeiting out while, at 285, senior Kevin Reyes faced a mammoth of a bracket with his consolation semifinal against defending state champion Ryder Luck of Lincoln. Reyes lost a 4-2 match to Luck, then finished sixth with a 5-3 loss to Tavares sophomore Ari Bentley.
For Middleburg coach Coll Robertson, his ascension on the state level with the Bronco program included a district title in both duals and individual brackets, a region finals berth against Clay in the Duals state tournament and three guys out of five finishing third at the individual state tournament, has elevated the Bronco program to one to watch on the horizon.
"We had no one here just four years ago and now we have three third place finishers," said Robertson, who strung together a six pack or so of junior high team titles at Lake Asbury Junior High before taking over the Middleburg team. "We keep punching up our objective each year with bigger goals to now we want to come here not just to win medals but to win state titles. That's coming soon."
For the Broncos, sophomore Nathan Harvey may have deserved the unsung hero award for the entire meet with his sterling performance thoughout the season with an eventual third place at his 106 weight division.
At 113, Harvey, who faced off and beat eventual state champion Joe Tucker for the region 1-2A title just a week ago, fell 11-5 to Riverview's Eric Bush, a sophomore, in his semifinal to push him into consolations.
"I wish I had that match again," said Harvey, "At this level, I learned a lot from last year's meet, but made a tactical error in my semifinal and everyone here is too good to do that. I'll be back."
For his consolation semifinal, Harvey's path got no smoother as he faced off against Tampa Jesuit's Brock Glover, another sophomore in the bracket that could portend for next year being a super tough weight class if everyone stays the same weight, and came away with a 1-0 win to advance to the third place match. Both wrestlers were cautious in the first two periods before Harvey worked an escape and then held off a late flurry by Glover.
"I knew coming from Jesuit that he would not slow down after I got my point," said Harvey. "It got crazy, but coach told me to stay calm and protect my legs."
In his third place match, against a second region opponent, Harvey attack swiftly and got to 12-0 before Gulf Breeze's Garrett Ferguson got points, but the match was over. Harvey beat Ferguson 15-0 in his region semifinal to get to Tucker in the final.
"It got crazy at the end and he had me close twice," said Harvey, noting two near falls by Ferguson, who lost to Tucker in his championship semifinal. "I think wrestling them in regions was helpful and knowing that I had beaten them gave me enough confidence to get the job done today."
Middleburg's senior of the contingency, Wyatt Leduc got to his semifinal with a pin and 20-2 smash before running into eventual state champion Eric Hodge of Somerset who won a 4-1 match scoring four second period points. Leduc was sent to consolations where he was bracketed to face off a long time friend and former teammate in Clay's Drew Holmquist with Leduc winning 13-6.
"I think it says a lot about our wrestling in Clay County that two guys that wrestled together in junior high are here wrestling each other at the state championships," said Leduc. "I think the three or four upperclassmen on our team have put a standard at Middleburg wrestling to keep coming back here and going for the top prize."
Leduc eventual pinned for his bronze medal over Osceola senior Izaiah Zaitouni, who came in at 45-4.
Middleburg's third third place medal came from junior Porter Loveland at 215 who lost his semifinal in overtime to a familiar foe, New Smyna Beach's Kyle Nilsson in overtime before storming to wins for this bronze medal. Nilsson wound up the state champion at 215 over Ponte Vedra's Talan Babin by a 9-4 score. Loveland won his third place with a quick 49 second pin over Springstead's Kaleb Johns, a junior, who also lost to Nilsson.
"My best match was my second match against Harper Noel at Heritage that was a rematch kind of match," said Loveland. "I was down 8-0 then 8-3, then pinned him to get to Nilsson in the semis that went to an overtime loss."