Four wrestlers from Flagler Palm Coast, Matanzas capture individual state championships
KISSIMMEE — Four local wrestlers, all from Flagler County schools, walked out of Silver Spurs Arena with state championship medals Saturday.
Flagler Palm Coast’s Joslyn Johnson and Christina Borgmann clinched titles at 100 and 125 pounds.
Matanzas siblings Mariah and Jordan Mills captured the top spots at 110 and 190 pounds. They became the first brother-sister duo to snatch championships in the same season since the Florida High School Athletic Association approved girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport three years ago, per Matanzas boys coach TJ Gillin.
Borgmann and Mariah Mills finished their finals matches via pin. Johnson grabbed a victory by 4-3 decision. Jordan Mills claimed the ultimate tiebreaker over New Smyrna Beach’s Sawyer Vanrider in the finals.
Vanrider joined DeLand’s Grace Lashinsky (115 pounds) and Matanzas’ Tiana Fries (140 pounds) as local runners-up.
Flagler Palm Coast also ranked as the highest-placing team from the area in the boys and girls standings. The Bulldogs slotted second in the Class 1A girls bracket and 11th in Class 3A boys. Matanzas’ girls squad followed right behind in third.
Overall, five boys teams and five girls groups from the Volusia-Flagler region competed. Ten boys and nine girls placed.
Jordan Mills
Less than a minute into the Class 2A 190-pound championship, Jordan Mills dislocated his right shoulder.
He was facing Vanrider for the fourth time this season after beating him for the district and regional titles. But they were all tough outings. Now, he was down his dominant arm and five points.
“Right after they popped it back in, it was hurting pretty bad,” Mills said. “But after that adrenaline kicked in, I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was just focused on winning.”
He cut the deficit to 5-1 by the end of the first period and tied it 6-6 at the end of the second. Vanrider jumped back ahead with a point 20 seconds into the third, and with six seconds left, Mills knotted it again — 7-7.
“Jordan has lungs,” Gillin said. “Jordan is the kind of kid you can tell to go out and run a 5K, and he’d do it in about 18 minutes without training to run a 5K. So once we got to overtime, we knew we were good there.”
He was.
In the first minute-long overtime period, the score did not change. But Mills started the ensuing 30-second round on the bottom and stood up, gaining his eighth point. He avoided a takedown from there.
“Never panicked,” Gillin said. “Just found a way to do it.”
Mills’ final record as a senior: 52-0.
“It feels great, and it’s just even more special doing it with my sister because she won hers,” he said. “It’s just special.”
Mariah Mills
Mariah Mills just sat on the mat for a moment.
“Like, ‘Wait.’ It didn’t click right away,” she said. “I was like, ‘I just won the state championship. I’m a state champ.’ It was crazy.”
After third-place finishes as a freshman and sophomore, the Matanzas grappler broke through as a junior. She handled Ponte Vedra’s Erin Rizzuto in the finals, winning by fall in 3:43 to close her campaign with a 37-1 record and state gold.
It was the fourth time this season Mills had squared off with Rizzuto, so the two knew each other well.
“My coach (Mike Fries) told me to go into it as if I had never wrestled her before with the same aggression that you would someone that you don’t know anything about,” Mills said. “I was trying to go into it with that same aggression, but I did know certain moves that she would do. Like, when she’d grab my arm or something, I knew she liked to go to certain things.”
Mills tallied two points in the match’s first 20 seconds, but Rizzuto responded with one in the waning moments of the opening period. Less than 80 seconds into the next period, Mills had assembled a 9-1 advantage and had Rizzuto on the ground for the last time.
She wrapped it up with a fall before hugging her coaches. Then, her brother.
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Joslyn Johnson
In January of 2023, less than two months into his first season as Flagler Palm Coast’s head coach, David Bossardet pointed at Joslyn Johnson. She was a freshman who had no prior wrestling experience. But she possessed all the qualities Bossardet wanted in his program. She was a prototype.
How about an update 14 months later?
“I stand by what I said a year ago,” Bossardet said. “She’s somebody that I want a million of her in our program. She’s one of the leaders.”
She’s also a state champion.
Johnson defeated Gulf Breeze’s Camdyn Elliott by 4-3 decision in the 100-pound finals.
Neither wrestler notched a takedown or a point in the first period. In the middle of the second, Johnson dragged Elliott to the mat and almost pinned her before Elliott wiggled out. Johnson went ahead 3-0, though.
Elliott scored two points early in the third period and tied it 3-3 with 10 seconds left. The two tangled on the ground.
“I’m hearing different voices — mostly coach,” Johnson said. “But everyone is like, ‘Stand up. You’ve got to get up.’”
With four seconds left, she did. That clinched her victory and a 33-5 record this season.
Christina Borgmann
The match lived in Christina Borgmann’s head for a year.
Last March, while wrestling in the 130-pound state finals as a Matanzas sophomore, Borgmann suffered a third-period fall against Lake Nona’s Milana Borrelli. Since then, she set herself on a collision course with redemption.
The junior, now at Flagler Palm Coast, rewatched the match often. Studied it. Even while warming up for her 125-pound finals contest against Pace’s Lahela Turquist Saturday, Borgmann kept thinking about her 2023 finale.
“I’ve been waiting for the comeback since last season,” Borgmann said.
It was a successful one, as she pinned Turquist in 3:48 to secure her first state title.
Borgmann controlled the match. At the time of the fall, she led 9-1. She almost ended it in the first period, but time ran out as she rolled Turquist onto her back.
“I’ve been wrestling really calm,” Borgmann said.
Her win completed her undefeated season at 25-0.
“She is a student of the sport,” Bossardet said. “I just give them bits and pieces. This time of year, you don’t want to change too much. She went out with a game plan, and she executed the game plan.”
Team standings
3A boys (77 teams)
State champion: South Dade — 274.5 points
Local teams:
11th: Flagler Palm Coast — 36
T-32nd: DeLand — 18
2A boys (82 teams)
State champion: Jesuit — 201
Local teams:
T-14: New Smyrna Beach — 41
T-20: Matanzas — 28
T-48: Deltona — 4
1A girls (128 teams)
State champion: Hernando — 104.5
Local teams:
2nd: Flagler Palm Coast — 84
3rd: Matanzas — 68
T-33rd: DeLand — 22
T-68th: University — 7
T-104th: Mainland — 0
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Individual state placers
The following boys placed in Class 3A:
Toryion Stallings, Flagler Palm Coast: fourth at 132 pounds
MJ Smokes, DeLand: fourth at 285
Trey Twilley, Flagler Palm Coast: sixth at 126
Kelton Howard, Flagler Palm Coast: seventh at 165
Ethan Laupepa, Flagler Palm Coast: seventh at 215
The following boys placed in Class 2A:
Jordan Mills, Matanzas: first at 190
Sawyer Vanrider, New Smyrna Beach: second at 190
Jonathan Bruner, New Smyrna Beach: sixth at 138
Aidan Sutton, New Smyrna Beach: sixth at 150
Kyle Yasses, Deltona: seventh at 138
The following girls placed in Class 1A:
Joslyn Johnson, Flagler Palm Coast: first at 100
Mariah Mills, Matanzas: first at 110
Christina Borgmann, Flagler Palm Coast: first at 125
Grace Lashinsky, DeLand: second at 115
Tiana Fries, Matanzas: second at 140
Ana Vilar, Flagler Palm Coast: fourth at 130
Alexa Calidonio, Flagler Palm Coast: fourth at 170
Ani Brown, Matanzas: seventh at 190
MaryEllen Wingate, University: eighth at 125
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: High school wrestling: Four Flagler County wrestlers win FHSAA titles
