2 Manatee High School girls weightlifters tie for No. 8 at Class 2A event

Manatee High School's Jenna Sypula and Heather Ball tied for eighth Saturday at the Class 2A girls weightlifting championship at the Kissimmee Civic Center. The eighth-place finish was the best of the six girls from Manatee County in the competition.

Sypula and Ball lifted a 230-pound total. Sypula officially finished eighth based on weight differential (She weighs less than Ball). Their lift totals were 10 pounds out of medal position (top six) and equalled their qualifying efforts. Both lifted 110 pounds in the bench press and 120 in the clean and jerk.

At the 129-pound weight class, Callie Nichols finished 17th with a weight total of 265 pounds. Nichols, a first-year competitor as a senior, lifted 125 in the bench press and 140 in the clean and jerk. The other Manatee competitor, Brooke Schamber, finished 17th at 154 pounds with a 285 total lift (140 bench, 145 clean and jerk).

"We were 5 to 10 pounds off what I was hoping for, but, at minimum, I wanted to do what got us there; I didn't want any dropoff, and we did that," Manatee coach Rich Lansky said. "In Heather's case, if she had made her last lift, it would have given her a 240 total. She cleaned it, but couldn't hold it. Jenna had been battling the flu, so she was down a little bit."

All four were making their first trip to the state competition. Schamber and Sypula are juniors.

"They will go back next year ready to do damage on the medals platform, now they have a sense of what states are like," Lansky said. "Just getting to states was their goal this year, but once you get there you have to set new goals."

Braden River's Sierra Rawley (183-pound weight class) finished 10th with a 315-pound total (145, 170), and Palmetto's Elizabeth Atkinson (199-pound weight class) finished 19th when she failed to post a weight in the clean and jerk.

Mark Lawrence, sports editor, can be reached at 745-7052 or on Twitter@BradentonSE

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "2 Manatee High School girls weightlifters tie for No. 8 at Class 2A event ."