Bonus points help propel Winter Springs
In tightly-contested duals, every point matters and Winter Springs' Jessiah Contreras knew he needed another takedown to get his bonus point for the Bears in their state region dual against Hagerty on Thursday night.
Contreras got the takedown in the final seconds of his 195-pound match to beat Hagerty's Matthew Kaplan 13-4, and the point proved decisive with Winter Springs topping Hagerty on criteria after wrestling to a 34-34 tie.
"As a high school athlete this is what I live for," Contreras said. "Maybe I can be remembered for getting one of the takedowns to get us to states."
Contreras’ win provided a spark for the Bears who went from a point down to take a 34-19 lead.
Hagerty would rally to tie the match with Winter Springs getting the win due to an unsportsmanlike call in one of the matches.
Also picking up wins for the Bears was Matthew Phillips (132), Joshua Contreras (138), Joe Burgess (170), Daniel St. John (220) and Matt St. John (285).
Each of the wins for Winter Springs came with bonus points, including Burgess’ pin over Garet LaGrange after the freshman was on his back early on.
"That’s what is great about dual meets," Winter Springs coach Rocky Ciero said. "Sometimes the glory goes to those guys who you may not have expected."
The Bears advance to the state dual tournament at Kissimmee Osceola starting on January 19, where they will face Fleming Island in the quarterfinals.
The Florida High School Athletic Association hopes the uncertainty resulting from postponed and interrupted football games last season is officially a thing of the past.
On Wednesday, the FHSAA Athletic Director Advisory Committee voted to endorse a recommendation by coaches that requires that
swift decisions be agreed upon by both schools regarding make-up dates, effective this fall.
The A.D. advisory committee met at the FHSAA office in Gainesville on behalf of member schools from around the state. The committee approved two other recommendations made by football coaches for the 2018 season.
Pending approval by the FHSAA board of directors on Jan. 29, six teams in each region will make the playoffs in Classes 1A through 4A instead of four. The top two seeds among the four regions in each classification will earn byes in the quarterfinal round.
The committee also voted in favor of increasing by five the number of points teams receive for losses in each of the four categories in the playoff points system. A team now gets 35 points for a loss to a Category 1 team that finishes 8-2 or better, the same amount given for beating a Category 4 team that ends with three or fewer wins. The measure was pushed as a means to encourage teams to schedule stronger opponents.
An approval to institute a 40-second play clock in between plays was approved, pending a decision by the National Federation of State High School Associations at its football rules committee meeting next week in Indianapolis.
A proposal to award teams bonus points for playing up in classification was denied, but the A.D. committee did recommend moving to a tiered bonus point system by 2019. The football advisory committee will be tasked with continuing that discussion.
Increasing football playoff rosters from the current maximum number of 60 players per team was discussed, but no action can be taken until 2019 because the measure was denied a year ago.