Memories of grandeur

Every year, it seems like the previous 12 months worth of sports moments are un-toppable.

Then the next year comes.

2017 was no exception. Individual titles, program turnarounds, history-making performances: It had it all. There are countless moments worthy of inclusion on a year-end list, but we can't include them all. Here, in our estimation, are the top-10 Sarasota sports moments of the year.

10 — Riverview volleyball's back-to-back district titles

It was a strange offseason for the Riverview High volleyball team.

After reaching the state semifinals in 2016, coach Craig Wolfe left the program. In came Nickie Halbert, who played for Elon University in North Carolina and led the school to a Southern Conference title in 2011.

The Rams' gig is Halbert’s first head coaching position, and one that she admits she would not have been ready for a few years ago, before learning as an assistant at Gainesville’s Santa Fe College and Ocala’s Trinity Catholic High.

Her inexperience turned out to matter little.

Riverview dispatched Newsome High in straight sets (25-16, 25-19, 25-19) Oct. 19 to win their second-consecutive district title.

"We had a list of all the things we wanted to do (this year)," Rams senior Kayla Walker said. "District champions was absolutely No. 1. There's only five teams in our district, including ourselves. It's important that we're better than them."

The Rams advanced to the regional semifinals before losing 3-2 to Olympia High. If Halbert’s first season is any indication, Riverview should expect to stay contenders into the future.

9 — Booker High boys basketball makes unexpected run

No team feels satisfied when it loses in the playoffs. The end of the season brings anguish and disbelief.

That does not mean, though, that players have to hang their heads during the offseason. For the Booker High boys basketball team, the best was yet to come, and that is enough for the Tornadoes and its fans to take pride in what the team accomplished in 2016-2017.

It was the first under coach Markus Black, who previously coached the JV squad. The previous year, the Tornadoes finished 13-11, and at first it appeared to be more of the same. The team sat at 1-3 through its first four games -- a less-than-ideal start. Black threw the gauntlet down: If players were more concerned about their own playing time and stats than accomplishing the team’s goals and putting the Tornadoes first, they would not play at all.

This got the team’s attention, then-senior Eunique Arnold said. It prompted everyone on the team to play unselfishly. The team’s chemistry got better, and the team’s play dramatically improved. Booker won 14 of its next 15 games.

Booker finished the season 20-8, the team’s best regular-season record since 2005-2006. It culminated in a Feb. 16 regional quarterfinal matchup with Tampa Jesuit High. In a back-and-forth battle, Booker won. Then-sophomore Johnnie Williams IV led the way with 26 points and eight rebounds. Then-sophomore Clark added 21 points himself, and Arnold had 19.

The Tornadoes would fall to Sebring High Feb. 21 in the regional semifinals, but the season proved the future at Booker was burning bright.

8 — Riverview football reaches regional final

New head coach, new levels of success.

The Riverview football team bested the 2016 team’s playoff run Nov. 17 when it upset the previously undefeated Vero Beach High Fighting Indians 35-28 on their own turf. The win sent the Rams and head coach Josh Smithers to a regional final matchup with Dr. Phillips High.

The Rams had four takeaways against Vero Beach, all in the second quarter, and they were all key to the victory. Junior Johnny Dawson recovered a fumble on a kickoff, senior Brantley Seadrow took a pick-six 38 yards, sophomore Ziggy Williams stripped Vero Beach quarterback Nick Celidonio during a sack, and freshman Chuck Brantley had an interception just before halftime.

It was a good night for the team’s turnover chain to debut.

The Rams lost to Dr. Phillips, the eventual Class 8A state champions, the next week. Smithers thanked the departing senior class for enduring some less successful years to lead the team to back-to-back playoff appearances, and for advancing as far as they did.

Not the playoff round the Rams wanted to be their last, but they were a fun and talented team with big dreams for the future. The 2017 squad will go down as one of the most beloved in recent memory.

7 — Sarasota baseball reaches state semifinals

When Brooks Larson stepped to the plate in the fifth inning of Sarasota High's Class 8A regional final against Steinbrenner on May 9, two runners on base and his team down 3-2, he was told one thing by coach Clyde Metcalf.

"Just have fun out there."

Larson listened. He took a swing and connected, sending the ball to left-center, over the Ronald K. Drews Field fence. He spent more time in the air while rounding the bases, leaping, screaming and pumping his fist, than he did on the ground. The Sailors won 5-3, sending them to the Final Four.

Larson’s ascension to Sarasota baseball royalty was unlikely in a season full of unlikely events. Historically, the Sailors are the best program in the area, and one of the best in the country. This team, though, was not expected to make much noise. Four then-seniors will play in college in 2018, but just one, catcher and pitcher Cole Madden, will play for an NCAA Division 1 school (the U.S. Military Academy at West Point).

It turned out not to matter.

“It’s always special if you win your region and go to the final four,” Metcalf said. “I think for us as coaches, it’s really special with these guys. They endured. They endured when people questioned their ability. They endured when people said, ‘Well, this isn’t your typical Sarasota High team.’ Whatever they said, they endured it, and they got better. The credit lies with those kids.”

The Sailors lost 7-0 to Hagerty High in the state semifinals, but the members of this team will always remember the magic.

6 — Dillon O’Neill wins state weightlifting title

Not much is as impressive as raw strength.

Cardinal Mooney then-senior weightlifter Dillon O’Neill won the Class 1A state title in the 238-pound weight class April 8 in DeLand, lifting a combined weight of 690 pounds.

Eye-popping numbers, indeed.

O’Neill, who also played both offensive and defensive line for the football team, wanted a strength advantage over his competition, so he started lifting.

His gains quickly went up. As a freshman in high school, he was able to bench press 300 pounds. The clean and jerk, which requires more technique, gave him trouble. By the end of ninth grade, he improved that lift to 230 pounds. After admittedly “stalling out” in the lift in 2016, he regained his form last year.

“I learned to keep my wrists flexible,” O’Neill said of how he improved his clean and jerk abilities. “That way, I can catch it (the bar) on my shoulders versus in the air. I have also learned to keep my back straight.”

He didn’t lose a meet in 2017. Not only was O’Neill dominant, he was consistent, and those traits brought him a gold medal.

5 — Ben Hartvigsen wins state cross country title

Sarasota High boys cross country junior Ben Hartvigsen (15:39.70) won the Class 4A individual state title Nov. 11 in Tallahassee.

It almost never happened.

His freshman season, his first as a runner, he found himself unable to break 19 minutes, no matter what he tried. He could have stopped and tried a different sport, one that is less taxing and offers more immediate gratification. He didn’t. He was patient, and at the first race of his sophomore season, the Bradenton Runners Club XC Invitational at G.T. Bray Park on Sept. 3, 2016, Hartvigsen didn’t just break 19 minutes, he broke 18 minutes, too, finishing in 17:46.40.

“I can’t imagine not running (now),” he said. “I don’t know, maybe it's some sort of addiction, that ‘runner’s high’ you hear about, but it helps me clear my head and is something I love. Maybe not while I’m doing it, but in retrospect, I always embrace it.”

Two years removed from that race at G.T. Bray, Hartvigsen is one of Florida’s elite.

4 — Sydney Edwards breaks boundaries at junior rowing championships

This year, area athletes didn’t just make local history. Some made national history.

At the 2017 World Rowing Junior Championships in Lithuania, which began Aug. 2 and ran through Aug. 6, Sarasota Crew coxswain Sydney Edwards coxed the U.S. Men’s 8+ shell (the plus sign means “with a coxswain”), becoming the first American woman to cox for a men’s team in a FISA (international rowing) competition.

FISA previously restricted coxswains to same-gendered shells, but changed its rule in March. Male coxswains can now cox for women’s boats as well.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Edwards said. “It definitely was a huge decision when I was first invited to the (Junior Worlds) camp. I had the opportunity to also go to the women’s side, which I competed on last year. Coming to the men’s side was a leap of faith, but it was also making history, which was one of the coolest parts about it.”

The Men’s Eight finished second at the championships (5:50.10), one second behind Germany. In this case, winning mattered less than who was participating, and a silver medal is still plenty to celebrate.

Edwards will continue coxing next season at Princeton University, with the Men’s Lightweight team. If any coxswain’s roar over the microphone can get the Tigers motivated, it’s her.

3 — Jaasiel Torres takes high jump gold

It was May 5, and it was darker than sin, and it was raining.

That’s what Sarasota High then-junior high jumper Jaasiel Torres had to deal with at IMG Academy during the Class 4A track and field state championships.

“I’ve jumped at night before, like once,” Torres said. “I’ve jumped in the rain once, but never in the rain at night. It was pretty cold when it was raining, so it was not a good combination.”

No one jumped to his potential, Torres said. While he didn’t alter his technique at all for the competition, he said, the rain did change his mindset as he approached the bar.

“I was hoping it would make it easier,” Torres said, “but I was also like, ‘Maybe if they’re jumping bad, it (the rain) might affect me, too.’”

It affected his jump a bit — He was bested by the bar at 6 feet, 7 inches, short of his personal best.

It was still 4 inches better than second-place finisher Brian Edwards of Miramar High, though, meaning Torres returned to Sarasota a state champion.

2 — Clark Dean rewrites American rowing history

At the 2016 World Rowing Junior Championships in the Netherlands, Clark Dean watched a few races next to John Luby, the U.S. men’s single scull representative at those games.

Dean, then a Pine View School junior, told Luby, now at Harvard University, he was considering competing in the single scull event at the 2017 games. Luby advised him against it — hard. Americans don’t win that event, he told Dean. Luby finished sixth in the event’s “B” final himself.

He was almost right. No American had won the event in 50 years, when Jim Dietz won it at the first-ever iteration of the junior championships in Ratzeburg, Germany. Either way, it was not an event that favored Americans, who tend to do better in the bigger boat events. That didn’t deter Dean. In fact, it made him want it more.

“I’m going to go win it,” he told Luby.

On Aug. 6, he fulfilled his promise.

Crossing the finish line at the 2017 championships in Trakai, Lithuania, Dean felt relief more than anything, he said. He finished in 7:04.73, more than 3 seconds faster than second-place finisher Mortiz Wolff of Germany.

A few days after returning from the championships, Dean received a message from John Luby.

He gave Dean congratulations as well, and admitted to being as wrong as you can be.

Dean could only laugh, and say thanks.

1 — Riverview High boys swimming four-peats

Members of the Riverview High boys swim team stuffed themselves with Waffle House food at 1 a.m. Nov. 11.

The breakfast chain is one of the only places open at such an hour, Rams senior Brett Riley said, and besides, “they have good waffles.”

It was the perfect place to celebrate. Hours earlier, on Nov. 10 in Stuart, Riverview won its fourth-straight Class 4A state title, beating second-place Lake Brantley High 278.5 to 198. For seniors Riley, Brendan Firlie and Nico Hernandez-Tome, it was the culmination of four years of hard work on the high school scene, having made the state team as freshman and contributed to each win since.

Of all four Riverview title teams, this year’s squad had perhaps the most interesting route  to the podium. The Rams won a single event at the state meet, the 400 freestyle relay (3:05.23) featuring sophomore Alexander Gardner, seniors Firlie and JJ Corrigan and sophomore Rene Strezenicky. The Riverview cheering section was losing its collective mind, Riley said, chanting ‘They don’t want none’ and ‘Big dogs eat first,’ two Rams rallying cries, while the team surged to an approximate two-second win.

Other than that, Riverview relied on its depth. The Rams had 10 top-5 finishes outside of the relay win.

If the Rams weren’t already, it’s official now: They’re a dynasty. The title streak puts them in rarefied air, with a single area program boasting a more impressive one — and it’s their female counterparts. The Rams girls team won seven state titles in eight years between 2006-2013.

“It doesn’t feel insane,” Hernandez-Tome said. “We've just always won. It’s cool though. We're going to look back 10 years later and be like, 'Wow.'"