By Kyle Coppola
MDCA Connor Calfy Dominates Weightlifting District Championship
Connor Calfy is a double district champion as he took home first place in both Traditional and Olympic weightlifting at the Class 1A Region 3 District 9 Weightlifting Championship this week. Calfy joins 9 Mount Dora Christian Academy lifters to qualify for Regionals this Saturday at The Villages Charter High School.
Connor Calfy competes in the 199-pound classification. He would go on to lift 565 pounds of weight. That beat out Jacob Deyer of Trinity Catholic by 55 pounds as Deyer could only muster 510 pounds of weight. Also finishing 6th in the 199 category for MDCA was Angel Salazar with 385 pounds of weight.
(While Connor Calfy would take 1st place in the 199 Class, Angel Salazar put in a gritty performance to finish 6th in Traditional. Photo Credit – MDCA.)
Other notables for MDCA in the Traditional Weightlifting class include Garrett McElroy, who finished 6th in the 119 class with 160 pounds of weight. Landon Garland would finish 5th in the 183-pound class in a four-way tie with 405 pounds of weight.
In the Olympic category, Calfy would absolutely dominate the 199-pound class. Calfy won with 470 pounds of weight. Trinity Christian’s Josiah Cowart could only muster 350 pounds. Calfy is entering his peak at this point. He is certainly the strongest lifter that MDCA has on the roster currently. MDCA’s Jacob Slayer finished a respectable 3rd in the same class with 285 pounds of weight.
(Jacob Salyer would finish 3rd on the podium with Connor Calfy in the 199 pound class for Olympic Weightlifting. Photo Credit – MDCA.)
Other notable MDCA lifters in the Olympic category include Garrett McElroy, who finished 3rd in the 119 class, Malakhi Garcia, who finished 7th in the 139 class, Jake Ellis and Kamdon Harmon, who finished 6th and 7th in the 154-pound class. Rodney VanDoren and Jordan DeKorte finished 7th and 8th in the 169-pound class.
(Luke Parker wound up finishing in 2nd place in the Unlimited class for Olympic lifting with 310 pounds. Photo Credit – MDCA.)
Liam Fitzsimmons finished 5th in the 183-pound class with 305 pounds of weight along with Luke Scheveling for MDCA finishing 6th with 300 pounds of weight put up. Victor Meyer finished 3rd in the 238-pound class, and Luke Parker finished a very respectable 2nd in the Unlimited class with 310 pounds of weight.
Winning the team competition for Traditional was Crescent City with 47 pounts. Taylor from Pierson finished close behind in 2nd with 42 points. Father Lopez from Daytona Beach was 3rd. MDCA would finish 7th as a team in Traditional. MDCA had a much better showing as a team in Olympic Weightlifting and finished 4th as a team. Father Lopez from Daytona Beach took 1st while Trinity Prep from Winter Park took 2nd place and Taylor from Pierson took 3rd.
Next up for all these weightlifters will be the Regionals on Saturday at The Villages. The Regionals will set the stage for which weightlifters will be headed to States. The Regionals will be held at The Villages on Friday, April 5th. The meet starts at 3:30 pm.
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
