The North Platte IronDawgs powerlifting team was at Omaha Central on Saturday, competing in the first fully-unified Nebraska High School Powerlifting Federation Championships.
After the final deadlift hit the floor, the Girls' team walked out as state runners-up.
"This is the first year that Nebraska has had a fully-unified powerlifting championship," explained Coach Arttie Parker, "and we are competing against the best of the best across the state. It doesn't matter if you are Class A or Class D, the best lifters in the state are here, so this is an amazing accomplishment for these girls, and for this program. When you're competing against all of the Metro schools, you are competing against sheer numbers of athletes, but our kids came out and they moved some incredible amounts of weight and showed their grit and it paid off. I couldn't be more proud."
On the girls' side, four athletes finished as silver medalists, with Myah Porter, Abbie Hankla, Lauren Bowers, and Grace Wilke all finishing second. Additionally, Carlie Berliner grabbed a bronze medal, while Rylee Kissinger placed fourth."
"Myah is dealing with some nagging injuries, or she would have been your state champion at 97 pounds. She was receiving treatment between the bench press and deadlift rounds, but she hung in there and fought for herself and her team. Grace set a state record in the bench press with her effort today, and set a couple more school records, Lauren broke all of her own school records today, and Abbie deadlifted 300 pounds at just 114 pounds of bodyweight. That's an insane number, when you think about it. Carlie is really hitting her stride at the right time of year, also, heading into Nationals."
Also of note, Katie Titus set three more school marks, this time taking down the squat, bench, and three-lift total marks, while Rylee Kissinger, in her first year as a powerlifter, became the final NPHS qualifier for the USAPL High School Nationals meet in March.
On the boys' side, only three NPHS lifters qualified due to injury, and all three put on a good show. Juniors Alex Valdivia and Bode Kroon finished 5th and 6th respectively, while senior Cole Tomlinson also took home a 5th place medal.
"We had a couple of lifters who have the numbers to be here, but Charlie Fonseca is injurerd right now, and Aadyn Smith missed the qualifying cut-off date as he had been dealing with a serious elbow injury from football. He's good to go for Nationals, however," Parker assured. "Alex is just finding out how strong he is, and he keeps setting school records as he grows. And Cole also set the school weight division record for bench press today. He just keeps finding little ways to get better all the time."
The IronDawgs will compete in a tune-up meet this coming Saturday at Niobrara-Verdigre, before taking a month to prepare for Nationals on March 27, 28, and 29 in Killeen, Texas.