Relive the stories that defined the year in Manatee County high school sports

Up until nearly the day school let out around Manatee County, major stories were breaking on the county’s high school sports scene. Just last week, Manatee High’s football head coaching job — historically one of the most prestigious coaching jobs in Florida — was filled by an unexpected candidate. A few weeks before that, the area racked up eight gold medals at the state track and field championships. And around that same time, the county became the test case for a new pitch-count rule instituted by the Florida High School Athletic Association.

Some of the stories that defined the 2016-17 school year will have profound affects on the state and county for years to come. Let’s remember some of the most important ones:

Manatee’s coaching upheaval

There were coaching changes all across the county, but none will potentially affect the landscape of its sport more than John Booth’s shocking decision to step down as Manatee’s head football coach during the spring.

A few hiccups down the stretch of the coaching search forced the Hurricanes to improvise a bit, but they still landed a major name when Yusuf Shakir, who had spent the previous eight years as Tallahassee Lincoln’s head coach, was named Booth’s successor Thursday.

Shakir has experience coaching in the shadow of a legend like Joe Kinnan, the Canes’ hall-of-fame former head coach. He became the head coach at Lincoln only a few years after David Wilson, essentially the Trojans’ version of Kinnan, stepped down, and in 2010 he orchestrated one of the all-time great high school upsets, knocking off Seffner Armwood to win the Class 4A championship.

Shakir’s hire will continue making headlines into the summer. He hasn’t actually met with his new team yet and won’t until Wednesday, and then he’ll have to start filling out the coaching vacancies. Manatee already has a first-year defensive coordinator coming in with former Sarasota Booker head coach Johnnie Jones, and now Shakir will have to find a new offensive coordinator after James Booth, last year’s coordinator and John Booth’s twin brother, took the head coaching job at Plant City.

Lakewood Ranch’s multi-sport dominance

There’s a case to be made that Lakewood Ranch had Manatee County’s best team in more than half of the sports contested by the county’s six public schools. The Mustangs’ boys basketball team went to the Class 8A semifinals and their girls team spent much of the year as one of the top-ranked teams in the state. Their boys soccer team went to the Class 5A championship and their girls team was one of only two in the county to reach the region playoffs. And that was just the winter season.

During the fall, Lakewood Ranch sent both its boys and girls cross country teams to the Class 4A championship with the boys finishing as runners-up, its girls golf team scored the best of any county team at the state championships, and its girls swimming team finished sixth in Class 4A. During the spring, both of the Mustangs’ track and field teams won multiple Class 4A championships, their softball team spent most of the season as the top-ranked team in all of Florida, and their baseball team was one of only three to reach the region playoffs.

Even in the other sports, Lakewood Ranch was mostly solid. There were only six sports — football, volleyball, boys tennis, girls tennis, girls weightlifting and flag football (which was an independent) — in which the Mustangs didn’t send either a team or individual at least on to the region level.

Pitch-count confusion

On the back of a dominant pitching performance by Jared Richardson, Bayshore seemed to be headed for a Class 5A-District 11 title and a shot to make a run through the Class 5A-Region 3 postseason.

The day after Richardson fired a complete game to send the Bruins to the Class 5A-11 championship game, though, Bayshore learned its season was over. Richardson had exceeded the pitch limit as dictated by a new Florida High School Athletic Association rule. The Bruins had to forfeit.

In the following days, coaches expressed confusion with the rules as written. The FHSAA’s wording leaves it unclear as to whether a pitcher can continue on the day he exceeds the number of pitches or whether he’s just forced to be sidelined for the maximum amount of days. Bayshore’s case will set a precedent for years to come.

Saint Stephen’s athletic awakening

One of the most successful athletic seasons in Saint Stephen’s history began during the fall. It was only six years ago that the Falcons were among the worst football teams in Florida, going winless in 2011. In November, Saint Stephen’s remarkable turnaround was complete. The Falcons won the Sunshine State Athletic Conference for the first state championship in program history.

The Falcons always had a knack for success in golf and tennis, and the football success was just the start for a year of firsts in other sports. Saint Stephen’s sent its first wrestlers to the state championship meet, and Alan Morano advanced all the way to the Class 1A semifinals. The Falcons’ boys track and field team won the school’s first district and region championships before tying for the top spot in all of Class 1A.

Most of the group that helped lead both champions will be back in 2017-18, as well. Fred Billy, Chase Brown and Sydney Brown — junior members of both teams this year — all have received Division I offers to play football.

A loaded wrestling crop

Although only one Manatee County wrestler left the state championships with a gold medal, 2017 was still a banner year for wrestling in the county. Six wrestlers from four different schools all reached the championship match and wrestlers from two others brought home medals from Kissimmee.

Manatee’s Charles Small, who won the Class 3A championship in the 160-pound weight class, was the Herald’s All-Area Player of the Year after teammate Marshall Craig, who won a silver and has committed to Purdue, was Player of the Year in 2016. Braden River’s Chance Sharbono and Lakewood Ranch’s Hunter Reed both added to their medal counts with silvers as seniors, and Southeast’s Darrien Grant finally reached the championship match during his final year in Bradenton. Brendan Bengtsson, another Pirate, was the final silver medalist.

And the heavyweight will lead next year’s group. Bengtsson was only a junior and will still be in the area next year when Palmetto goes for its third straight county championship and Saint Stephen’s, which didn’t have any seniors, will search for its first Class 1A championship after sending grapplers on to the state meet for the first time this year.

More opportunity for girls

Title IX is constantly forcing schools to find more ways to get girls involved in sports and during the past year Manatee County has made some significant progress. All six of the county’s public schools added flag football as a girls varsity sport. Bradenton Christian, which doesn’t actually have to follow Title IX, added beach volleyball as a girls varsity sport, albeit without Florida High School Athletic Association sanctioning, and head coach Andrea Kneser is taking over as the sport’s commissioner in the Sunshine State Athletic Conference.

There should be more on the horizon, too. Kneser’s primary goal as SSAC commissioner is to continue growing beach volleyball’s presence in Florida high schools, but before that Manatee and Lakewood Ranch could find another outlet. Both schools are in the process of adding boys and girls lacrosse as varsity sports for the 2017-18 school year.

This story was originally published May 29, 2017 at 6:16 PM with the headline "Relive the stories that defined the year in Manatee County high school sports."