- November 25, 2024
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At Matanzas High School, weightlifting is more than a sport. It’s a way of life.
The back wall in the field house is decorated with plaques of record holders and state champions.
All of them are male lifters, but if girls weightlifting coach Sara Novak has anything to do with it, that’s going to change. And it could be sooner rather than later.
Novak, who also is the softball coach at Matanzas, has been leading the girls weightlifting program at Matanzas since it started three years ago.
It began with about 30 lifters, most of them softball players who were trying to build strength and muscle for softball season. (Weightlifting is a winter sport, and softball is a spring sport.)
Last Thursday, 42 lifters dressed out for a tri-team meet with Pine Ridge and Crescent City. The program continues to grow. And most of the lifters aren’t softball players, either.
“I would say maybe 50% of them are softball,” Novak said, adding that there are lacrosse players, volleyball players and track-and-field athletes on the weightlifting team, too.
Sara Komanowski, a senior at Matanzas, has been lifting for the last two years. She’s a golfer and a lacrosse player.
“I lift because I like to be successful, and that’s exactly what Matanzas weightlifting is,” she said.
Komanowski said Novak’s dedication to the sport helps drive her, too. She also said that lifting helps with her other sports. (Lacrosse is played in the spring, and so Komanowski’s using weightlifting as a way to prepare.)
“It’s really a good way to keep in shape before the season starts,” she said. “It’s like a pre-conditioning before conditioning.”
Novak said that her softball team’s success (which made the state playoffs last season) can directly be tied to the team’s work in the weight room. But, she said, seeing other athletes go from lifting 30 pounds in the beginning to now being able to lift 90 pounds is what really drives Novak.
Novak lifted weights in college, but a lot of her passion came from coach Joey Lippo, the team’s strength-and-conditioning coach for the past seven years. He left earlier this year to coach at Pedro Menendez.
As Novak walked around the weight room during last Thursday’s meet, she stopped near each lifting platform to cheer on the lifter. Sometimes, it was a Lady Iron Pirates. Sometimes it wasn’t. It didn’t matter. She clapped and smiled. She wants everyone to succeed.
“The other day, I was thinking that, sometimes, as much as I love softball, I almost get more excited for weightlifting practice and meets than I do for softball games,” she said.
Matanzas won the home opener with 67 points. Crescent City finished with 18, and Pine Ridge scored 11. Matanzas is now 1-1 this season after taking second place at a meet at Flagler Palm Coast earlier in the season.
“I’m just here to keep on winning,” Novak said.
