Rosenthal wins state title in 100 breaststroke as Gulliver girls finish second in Class 2A
OCALA
With Gulliver Prep in second place, the team was minutes away from finishing as the runner-up at the Class 2A state championship.
Junior Reese Rosenthal took the pool in the fourthto-last event: the girls’ 100-yard breaststroke. She finished in 1:03.13 minutes — the quickest time of the heat — to earn the state title in the event and cement Gulliver Prep’s second-place finish.
“It’s been a goal of mine for years, and to finally be able to do that, I can’t thank my parents, coaches, anyone that’s supported me, enough,” she said.
Gulliver Prep was one of the many Region 4-2A teams to stand out on the big stage Friday at the Class 2A meet at the Florida Aquatics Swimming and Training Center.
American Heritage Plantation finished fourth on the boys’ side with 124.5 points. Mater Lakes scored a seventh-best 103 points, Pompano Beach came in eighth with 102, and MAST Academy was ninth with 100 points.
The Gulliver girls finished with 195 points, putting them behind only Tampa’s Academy of the Holy Names (316 points). The Pompano Beach girls scored 105 points, good for eighth place, and American Heritage Plantation secured a 15th-best 53 points.
Gulliver Prep secured the state runner-up finish despite graduating several swimmers and this being coach Nick Folker’s first season. “For these girls to step up like that,” he said, “... total team effort.”
Gulliver Prep’s Giovanna Musiello, a junior, was second in the 200-yard individual medley (2:04.32) and third in the 100-yard backstroke (57.15 seconds).
Gulliver Prep’s relay teams finished the 200yard medley relay in
1:48.78 for second place, the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:38.64 for second place and the girls’ 400yard freestyle relay in 3:38.41 for third.
MAST Academy also had a couple of strong relay performances. The Makos secured second in the boys’ 200-yard medley relay and the boys’ 200-yard freestyle relay with times of 1:37.47 and 1:26.60, respectively.
Mater Lakes finished second (3:11.59) in the boys’ 400-yard freestyle relay and third (1:26.84) in the boys’ 200-yard freestyle relay.
While Cardinal Gibbons didn’t finish high in the team swimming results, its divers found success. Sophomore Juliet Radich broke out an inward double somersault tuck with a chance to clinch the state title in the girls’ 1-meter dive. The second-place diver was 12 points behind, so Radich had all but won the title. She executed the stunt and earned one of her highest scores, giving her the state title in the event. She ended with 473.65, with the runner-up at 453.10.
WINKLER EXCELS
Senior Kaii Winkler fractured his hands, left wrist and right elbow in June in a bicycle accident. A little over four months later, Winkler now holds multiple national records and multiple state titles.
“I put in a lot of work getting back into shape,” Winkler said. “I kind of had a rough time with my mindset, but you’ve got to move forward and always just look toward better things.”
Winkler was the biggest standout at the Class 1A state swimming and diving championships, which hosted a slew of future swimming stars. South Florida HEAT, Winkler’s team, placed second among girls with 251 points and fifth in the boys group with 123 points Saturday.
Winkler started the evening dashing through the 200-yard freestyle in 1:32.68, breaking his state record of 1:34.18 and the national record of 1:32.99 set in 2019.
Winkler then added to his state title collection when he finished the 100yard butterfly in 46.33 seconds. His 42.14-second 100-yard split in the boys’ 400-yard freestyle relay also broke the 42.34 national record for the 100yard freestyle.
But senior Erika Pelaez didn’t let Winkler have all the fun — she set a couple of state records herself.
Pelaez’s 21.98-second 50-yard freestyle and her 100-yard backstroke in 51.29 both set state records and gave her state titles in each event. And she was a part of the girls’ 400-yard freestyle relay that broke another state record when the finisher touched the wall with a time of 3:19.39.
Pine Crest had a fourthbest boys’ total of 128 and seventh-best girls’ total of 105 in the swimming portion, but it led the way in the dives with four divers in the top six. Junior Allen Levitis won the one-meter.