John Rivera, Sophia Falco close Lakewood Ranch careers with gold

The first three to run in Lakewood Ranch High School’s 3,200-meter relay could relax when Jonathan Reid handed the baton to John Rivera for the fourth and final leg at the Class 4A championship at IMG Academy Stadium.

The Mustangs had the lead, and when Lakewood Ranch has the lead with the baton in Rivera’s hand the team seldom loses.

“We know that wherever we are, even if we’re in fifth, sixth, seventh place, we have basically a cheat code here,” Andrew Dean said, pointing at Rivera. “Whenever he gets it, we have all the confidence in the world. We know that he’s going to be able to make it up.”

Both the Mustangs boys and girls teams have had their own cheat codes for the past four years, and it produced an unparalleled two-year stretch of success at Lakewood Ranch.

For the boys, it has been Rivera, a whiz in the 800-meter run who won the Mustangs’ first boys state title Friday in the event and then anchored the relay team to the program’s second state championship Saturday. At one point this year, Lakewood Ranch had the fastest 3,200 relay time in the country.

For the girls, it has been Sophia Falco, a sprinter and jumper who has piled up medals all over IMG Academy Field during the past two springs. Last year, she won gold in the long jump and silver in both the triple jump and 100 dash. This year, she repeated in the long jump Friday, won gold in the triple Saturday and picked up another silver in the 100 and a bronze in the 200 dash.

Falco was the primary reason the Mustang girls won the 4A team championship last year, and this year she almost single-handedly led them to a fourth-place finish, scoring 34 of their 38 points — Karen Lyvers scored the other four with a fifth-place finish in pole vault. Miami Southridge won the team championship with 90 1/2 points.

Rivera was the top scorer for Lakewood Ranch’s boys this year, and they finished fourth with 37 points. Miramar won the boys championship with 62 points.

Both Rivera and Falco sent their teams out to strong starts with gold medals on the opening day. Falco defended her state championship in the long jump and Rivera raced out to an easy win in the 800 run. A day later, both set their sights on a second state title with Falco competing in the triple and Rivera anchoring the nationally-competitive 3,200 team with Dean, Jonathan Reid and Brice Easton.

“We have the state championships on our mind the entire time,” Rivera said. “We want the gold medal. We had the team to do it and it truly showed this year.”

Rivera and Co. won one of the most lopsided races of the weekend, racing to the finish line in 7 minutes, 53.45 seconds. Miami Columbus, the second-place team, finished in 8:05.52 seconds.

Later, Rivera won a third medal with a silver in the 1,600 run, and Reid pulled in another medal with a seventh-place finish in the same race.

Falco, meanwhile, closed her high school career with the same sort of individual dominance the rest of the Mustangs have grown accustomed to. She set a personal best on her first triple jump of the day at 42 feet, 8 inches and then coasted to prepare for her final two events. She jumped only once more, then finished second in the 100 and third in the 200.

“Honestly, it was like the best that could have happened,” Falco said. “It felt like perfect.”

This story was originally published May 6, 2017 at 10:25 PM with the headline "John Rivera, Sophia Falco close Lakewood Ranch careers with gold."