2019 Florida HS 4A State: Oviedo Sweeps Team Titles, Boys Repeat

FHSAA 4A State Championships

• Results
• Friday, November 15
• Stuart, FL
• State Series Results Index

The boys and girls of Oviedo High School had a stellar state meet on Friday, sweeping both team titles for the first time in program history. For the Oviedo boys, this marks their repeat state title after winning the 3A meet in 2018.

Top 5 Boys’ Team Scores:

1. Oviedo – 214
2. Seminole (Sanford)/Riverview – 177
3. –
4. Lake Brantley – 173
5. Jupiter – 145

Top 5 Girls’ Team Scores:

1. Oviedo – 333
2. Creekside – 198
3. Boca Raton – 167
4. Winter Park  – 138
5. Riverview – 132

The Oviedo girls had a dominant meet by sweeping all three relays and winning by 135 points over Creekside. In the race for the top 5, Riverview just missed finishing in 4th place by 6 points behind Winter Park.

On the boys’ side, the Oviedo boys had an insurmountable depth that allowed them the team title, despite no event victories and a handful of top-3 finishes. Seminole and Riverview, on the other hand, duked it out for team runner-up, which ended in a tie. Riverview could, hypothetically, have distanced themselves ahead of Seminole and potentially Oviedo, however, the team suffered a DQ in the 200 free relay.

Meet Highlights:

In the girls 200 medley relay, Oviedo butterfly leg Abigail Gibbons split a blistering 23.52 to give the relay a 2-second lead to aid their win (1:42.45). A distant two seconds behind, the girls of Creekside took second place (1:44.15) while Plant rounded out the top 3 (1:45.31).

On the boys’ side, Oviedo was just half a second behind Seminole heading into the final leg. However, Seminole anchor Dawson Joyce anchored his squad with a 19.93 split to win the event at 1:32.06. The Oviedo boys took second place at 1:33.04.

The individual highlight swimmer of the meet was Flagler’s Micayla Cronk, who threw down a historically fast state meet. Cronk kicked things off in the 200 free with a lifetime best of 1:44.39, just 0.08s off Morgan Tankersley‘s 2016 state record. Cronk then turned on her engine and took her second title in the 100 free at 48.20, which successfully took down one of Tankersley’s state records (48.69).

Both of Cronk’s swims earned her spots in the all-time top 100 performers list in 15-16 age group history. Cronk is now the 11th-fastest 200 free performer and 7th-fastest 100 free performer.

Lexie Mulvihill of Steinbrenner took runner-up behind Cronk in the 100 free, putting up the second sub-50 swim with a 49.58. Two events before, Mulvihill won the 50 free with a 22.46, the lone sub-23 swim from the girls’ side.

Speaking of the 50 free, Seminole’s Joyce won the boys individual event with a 20.17 after anchoring sub-20 to aid the 200 medley relay win. Joyce’s winning time also made him #35 on the all-time 100 list in 15-16 age group history. Joyce also won the 100 free at 44.70, which also put him on the all-time rankings.

Riverview’s Emma Weyant successfully defended her 2018 state titles in the 200 IM (1:58.10) and 500 free (4:40.85). Both of her winning times earned her spots on the all-time top 100 for the 17-18 age group.

Finishing in second place behind Weyant in the 200 IM was Plant’s Ella Bathurst, finishing with a 2:00.74. Later in the meet, Bathurst successfully won the 100 breast with her winning time of 1:01.83.

Another Riverview swimmer, Alexander Gusev, also stormed away with two event wins. The senior took titles in both the 200 IM (1:48.88) and 100 fly (48.62). Earlier in the 200 medley relay, Gusev contributed to his squad’s 3rd-place finish (1:33.61) with a hot 21.63 fly split.

More Class 4A State Champions:

• Boys 200 Free: Cole Parnell (Lake Brantley)- 1:38.08
• Girls 100 Fly: Olivia Peoples (Nease)- 53.15
• Boys 500 Free: Wesley Hyde (West Port)- 4:28.90
• Girls 200 Free Relay: Oviedo (K. Herbet, Bishop, J. Herbet, A. Gibbons)- 1:33.68
• Boys 200 Free Relay: Seminole (Joyce, Haines, Haynie, Toth)- 1:24.16
• Girls 100 Back: Gabriela Donahue (Oviedo)- 54.72
• Boys 100 Back: Noah Evans (Seminole)- 49.77
• Boys 100 Breast: Nathaniel Boccuzzo (Lake Brantley)- 56.23
• Girls 400 Free Relay: Oviedo (Cathcart, Bishop, J. Herbet, Donahue)- 3:24.71
• Boys 400 Free Relay: Lake Brantley (Sungail, Boccuzzo, Basinger, Parnell)- 3:04.15

*Below is a Twitter thread of facts about Oviedo’s 2019 state meet performance, courtesy of senior Ryan Gibbons. R. Gibbons’ finished his high school career with a 3rd-place finish in the 200 IM (1:51.72) and 6th-place finish in the 500 free (4:35.93). He also contributed efforts to the 3rd-place 200 free relay (1:25.46) and 7th-place 400 free relay (3:11.73).

Some facts regarding the @Oviedo_High State Champion win last night: pic.twitter.com/tRGksBqJHn

— Ryan Gibbons (@ryankgibbons) November 16, 2019