The All-Sports Awards winners used state titles, especially the big schools winner, to emerge at the top a season ago. For 2023-24, however, the depth of the winners’ respective programs proved to be the difference.
Winter Haven used an advantage in the three newest spring sports to pull away from George Jenkins and defending champion Lake Wales to win the The Ledger’s Big Schools All-Sports Award.
McKeel used a decisive advantage over Lakeland Christian in the fall and winter to hold off LCS’ comeback attempt in the spring to dethrone the Vikings as the Small Schools winners.
For Winter Haven, it was its eighth win, but its first since 2017 as Lake Wales (4) and Lakeland (2) have combined for the past six titles. George Jenkins still leads with 13 titles since the inception of the award for the 1993-94 school year.
“That’s awesome,” Winter Haven athletic director LeDawn Gibson said. “I mean, honestly with me being an alumni, an old coach and now an AD, it’s big. It’s huge on my end for sure. But, you know, I’m just trying to get Winter Haven athletics back up to the top in every sport, not just one or two. So I think it’s a great accomplishment for our sports programs, and academically we’ve done great. So the two and two together, I mean, this is coming together like we wanted to.”
It’s not just winning that is important to Gibson, it’s getting the students participating.
“We’re getting numbers,” she said, later adding, “I think we’re doing it the right way, because the student first, athlete second and academically, I think we had, overall, a 3.4305 overall GPA (for athletics). So that’s wonderful.”
With district titles in football and volleyball, Winter Haven was in fourth place after the fall with 87 points, trailing Lakeland (118), Lake Wales (99) and George Jenkins (91).
Final four teams in boys and girls basketball helped Winter Haven win the winter and move into second place with 189 points, trailing just Lakeland (201).
Winter Haven was helped in the spring by its track programs’ top finishes, but the difference was in the most recent sports added to the spring: Flag football, beach volleyball and boys volleyball. Winter Haven combined to win 45 points in those to George Jenkins’ 25 points. That 20-point difference allowed Winter Haven to win by 10 points.
“We’ll take it,” Gibson said.
Although George Jenkins doesn’t have boys lacrosse, strong showings by its baseball team (district champion, regional runner-up), softball, (district runner-up) and boys and girls track teams (two district titles and one regional title) allowed the Eagles to win the spring with 165 points.
McKeel dethrones Lakeland Christian
The small-school showdown was between McKeel and Lakeland Christian was among teams that had evenly split the last six titles. McKeel won its fourth overall title by 32 points over LCS, which has won 22 Small Schools titles.
McKeel’s strength in volleyball, swimming and golf allowed it to take a 33-point lead after the fall.
Despite LCS’s state title in girls soccer, McKeel won the winter by 19 points to take a commanding 52-point lead. McKeel and LCS earned the same amount of points in boys and girls basketball and McKeel’s boys and girls soccer programs, which included its state semifinal boys team, finished with 55 points to nearly keep pace with LCS which picked up 65 points in soccer.
McKeel’s points in girls weightlifting and wrestling gave the Wildcats the edge in the winter.
Although LCS won the spring by 20 points, it wasn’t enough to make a serious run.