- January 8, 2025
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Jordan Borges, the Braden River High girls varsity weightlifting head coach, thought the 2024-25 season might be a restructuring year for the program.
The Pirates had lost a whopping 12 seniors heading into this season, including four state meet qualifiers in 2024.
It didn’t take long, however, for Borges to realize that wouldn’t be the case. What he found was this year’s roster of 45 weightlifters had the chance to be even more successful than in 2024.
“It was after the first month of our official team practices that we realized that even the young kids, whether they were freshmen or sophomores, had made a massive amount of improvement from all the work that they put in during the off-season,” said Borges. “We saw this year as more of a reload than a rebuild. We reloaded the team with new athletes in some of the places that we were lacking after graduating our senior class.”
The standard, Borges said, has been raised. Last season, the Pirates won their second consecutive Class 2A district title and followed it with a win at the Class 2-Region 3 championship on Feb. 2 at New Port Richey, the program’s first regional title.
This season, Braden River has continued its run of excellence, posting an 8-0 record in the regular season, building upon its run of 25 consecutive dual meet victories.
Some of Braden River’s success has been due to the emergence of newcomers like 119-pound freshman Ellen Lehman. Lehman, who came into the program with previous weightlifting experience, has helped to fill a gap in the lower weight classes left by graduating seniors.
Although only a freshman, Lehman already has broken multiple school records, including a 135-pound snatch and a 155-pound clean and jerk — top five lifts on the entire team despite being in the third-lowest weight class.
Borges said more than just her physicality, Lehman’s dogged competitiveness and will to win are what make her a special weightlifter.
“Ellen means business,” said Borges. “She’s intense and I have confidence in her, because you can’t teach the competitiveness that she has. She will do what it takes to make a lift. I’m confident that she will finish top three in the state this year and will make a massive splash at the state level in the next four years.”
Borges also said 154-pound junior Payton Mangay-Ayam, the team’s top lifter. has the best shot at winning an individual state title, something that has never been done in program history.
Mangay-Ayam doesn’t have the stereotypical demeanor of a weightlifter, however. She’s lighthearted, effusive, joking with others until the very moment that she steps on the platform.
“I was quite intense as a competitor myself, so when I started coaching Payton in her freshman year, I thought that she was extremely talented, but the focus wasn’t there,” said Borges. “It wasn’t so much that she had to get used to my coaching as much as I had to get used to her lifting style. I tried to fit her into the mold of what I thought a weightlifter should act like and it didn’t work. If anything it made her worse.”
Last season, Borges took a different approach. Realizing that Mangay-Ayam didn’t need to be pushed — she pushes herself plenty in practice he said — Borges took his foot off the gas, telling Mangay-Ayam to just be herself before stepping onto the platform.
The change in approach paid dividends. Mangay-Ayam finished second last year in the 154-pound class in the regional championship with a 140-pound snatch and 190-pound clean and second in the 2A state final in the Traditional and Olympic classifications on Feb 17 in Lakeland.
This season, Mangay-Ayam is out for the individual state title— she’s currently tied for the top mark in the state with a 160-pound snatch, 200-pound clean and a 170-pound bench press.
Other upperclassmen include juniors Chloe “Pogo” Pogoda, Taylor Ford, Angelina Nguyen and senior Baylee Hinkle. The four represent the diversity within the team — Hinkle lifts at 199 pounds, Pogoda at 183 pounds, Ford at 139 pounds and Nguyen is at 101 pounds.
Hinkle and Pogoda, who competed at the varsity level for the first time last season as a sophomore, won individual district titles in their respective weight classes and are primed to defend them this season.
More than just the wins and losses, however, Borges values the confidence that weightlifting gives his athletes outside of the gym.
"A lot of people underestimate how powerful believing in yourself really is," said Borges. "People say that there's a fine line between self-belief and delusion, but I'm not so sure that they're all that different. It takes a crazy person to go for a lift, miss it five times in a row and still think that they're going to make it — but then they hit it."
Borges will feel the most successful, he said, when he sees his athletes take what they've learned from the time in his gym and apply it to the real world outside of their athletic careers.
