High School Sports

Columbus, Krop, Southwest, TERRA win bowling districts, advance to state. Plus sports honors

The TERRA girls’ bowling team bounced back from the loser’s bracket to become a district winner and qualify for state.

District 17 (South) featured 14 schools at Bird Bowl in Westchester, and the tournament was similar to the Miami Dade County Youth Fair event, with teams playing head-to-head - three games each. The top four schools (four boys’ teams and four girls’ teams) then advanced to the Baker Round - double elimination finals - best three of five.

Districts started at 9 a.m. and ended at 5:30 p.m.

TERRA defeated Ferguson back-to-back in the Baker Round to win the district title.

The champs are Ella Perez, Alexa Puett, Gillian Pons, Alyssa Sosa, Jezel Lopez, Jassidy Lopez. The coach is Catherine Manfra.

In the morning session, TERRA, Ferguson, Palmetto, and Coral Gables advanced to the Baker Round.

Coral Gables upset TERRA in the first round of the Baker Round, dropping TERRA to the loser’s bracket where they battled to become district champions, beating Ferguson twice, including the winner-take-all finale in straight sets (154-133, 200-116, 163-117).

Advancing to state for the girls: Champion TERRA, Runner-up Ferguson and Palmetto’s Ruby Tenbroek and Maggie Meltzer.

In the morning session of the boys’ division, the top four schools were Ferguson, Southwest, Cutler Bay and TERRA.

In the semifinal of the Baker Round, Ferguson defeated Southwest. The Eagles dropped to the loser’s bracket where they defeated Cutler Bay to set-up a rematch with Ferguson.

Like TERRA’s girls, Southwest’s boys battled back. The Eagles avenged their loss to Ferguson, beating them twice in the finals to win the championship, with the finale 160-139, 126-141, 182-136, 166-154.

Photo Courtesy Southwest Bowling

Advancing to state for the boys: Champion Southwest, Runner-up Ferguson, TERRA’s Casey Puett and Palmetto’s Evan Viener.

Photo Courtesy TERRA Bowling

Individually, the high scorers for boys and girls were TERRA senior twins Alexa Puett (537) and Casey Puett (649).

The FHSAA State Bowling Tournament is through Nov. 4 at the Boardwalk Bowl Entertainment Center in Orlando.

More District Bowling

The Columbus boys’ bowling team defeated Belen Jesuit 3 games to 2 games in the Baker Round finals of a district tournament at AMF Pembroke Pines Lanes.

The district champion Explorers had four bowlers score in the Top 10. They are Marlon Ruiz, Chris Ferrer, Alejandro Johnson and George Kakouris.

Also on Columbus are Aidan Acevedo, Robbie Martinez, Luca Ordonez, Carlo Toca. The coach is Adam Scholer.

Photo Courtesy Columbus Bowling

Champion Columbus and Runner-up Belen advanced to state.

Photo Courtesy COHEA Bowling

COHEA bowler Tyler Keller won a district title to qualify for the state tournament, too.

Teammate Adair Garcia also qualified for state, placing third at districts at AMF Pembroke Pines Lanes.

COHEA: Boys: Tyler Keller high game 258, series 736; Adair Garcia high game 251, series 565; Bo Williams high game 137, series 327, Vincent Teck high game 128, series 212; Miguel Gonzalez high game 111, series 204; Yusnier Fernandez high game 127, series 189.

COHEA: Girls: Krystal Fernandez high game 106, series 288; Kassandra Fernandez high game 97, series 234.

Dr. Krop won the girls’ district title defeating Alonzo & Tracy Mourning School in the finals.

Photo Courtesy Dr. Krop Bowling

The champs are Mai-Lisa Atis (Sr.), Sagine Atis (Soph.), Alysa Marquez (Jr.), Thalia Nelson (Soph.), Sophia Platonov (Soph.), Rebecca Vainstein (Sr.). The coach is Amy McMillan.

Both teams advanced to state. Victory Coleman of American and Florencia Merlino of Reagan/Doral qualified for state as well.

Football honors

Ransom Everglades earned several Florida Independent Football Conference awards.

Coach of the Year - Roger Caron.

Player of the Year - Nick Rubino (Jr.).

Scholar Athlete - Levi Gans (Sr.).

Special Teams Player - Caleb Carlson (Sr.).

1st Team All Conference - Nick Rubino (Jr.), Levi Gans (Sr.), Jack Rivas (Sr.), Andy O’Brien (Sr.).

2nd Team All Conference - Gabe Alencar (Jr.), Ryan Courey (Jr.), AJ Srebnick (Jr.).

3rd Team All Conference - Brendan Dyke (Jr.), Trent Mopsick (Jr.).

Golf honors

The American Junior Golf Association announced its 2021 Rolex Junior All-America Teams.

Luke Clanton (Miami Lakes) First Team.

He plays high school golf for American Heritage-Plantation.

Photo Courtesy AJGA

Nicholas Prieto (Miami) Second Team.

He plays high school golf for Florida Christian School.

Photo Courtesy AJGA

The Rolex Junior All-America Teams annually recognize the world’s premier junior golfers. The 2021 class includes 48 boys and 48 girls, age 14-19, from 23 states and five countries, including Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States.

These young men and women distinguished themselves through exceptional play in 146 national junior golf events, 128 conducted by the AJGA. The teams were determined exclusively through the Rolex AJGA Rankings as of October 13.

Wrestling honors

Somerset (Pembroke Pines) wrestling celebrated two USA Preseason National All Americans. They are Matthew Jimenez and Kendrick Hodge.

After losing to the No.7 ranked Super 32 runner-up 3-1 in the first round, Jimenez battled back to take third overall.

Hodge lost in the second round to the top seed but then won nine consecutive consolation matches, including avenging his earlier loss in overtime to place third.

Also from Somerset, Kevin Concepcion and Matthew Velasco each went 3-2. Rashad Hannon was 0-2, losing each match by just one point.

Somerset won two team state titles in Florida high school wrestling last season under the direction of Coach Joe Blasucci.

Soccer

The Soccer Locker/Miami Country Day Pre-Season Boys’ Soccer Classic is Nov. 3 and 4 at the Miami Country Day School Soccer Complex in Miami Shores.

Wednesday, Nov. 3:

5 p.m. Ransom Everglades vs. Miami Beach

7 p.m. Jackson vs. Miami Country Day

Thursday, Nov. 4:

5 p.m. Ransom Everglades vs. Jackson

7 p.m. Miami Beach vs. Miami Country Day

Submit sports results

For high schools in Broward and Miami-Dade, if you have varsity results, top performers and stats for this column, email hssports@miamiherald.com.

They will run in the newspaper and online. Photos accepted, too. No deadline. Send after the game, the next day or weekly. You will be alerted when it will appear in the newspaper and online.

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Roundup compiled by Jim Varsallone

jvarsallone@miamiherald.com

This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 1:50 AM.

Jim Varsallone
Miami Herald
Jim Varsallone writes a high school sports column twice a week, featuring top performers in all varsity sports (boys and girls) in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. He also covers pro wrestling, something he’s done since his college days in the late 1980s. Now in his fifth decade of coverage, he currently follows WWE (Raw, SmackDown and NXT), AEW, Ring of Honor, TNA Impact Wrestling, MLW, WOW, NWA, and the South Florida indies, mainly CCW. He writes MMA, too -- mostly profile stories and video interviews with American Top Team and Sanford MMA fighters in South Florida. As for pro wrestling, he writes feature stories and profile pieces, updates upcoming show schedules in South Florida, photographs the action and interviews talent (audio and video) -- sharing the content here and via social media on his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channel: jim varsallone (jimmyv3 channel). Support my work with a digital subscription
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