The all-sports award recipients used state titles to rise to the top last season, especially the big-school winners, but in the 2023-24 season, the depth of each of the recipients’ programs makes the difference.
Winter Haven dominated the latest three spring sports to win Ledger Magazine’s Big School All-Sports award, beating out George Jenkins and defending champion Lake Wales.
McKeel dominated Lakeland Christian decisively in the fall and winter, then pulled off an LCS upset in the spring to beat the Vikings and claim the small school championship.
It was Winter Haven’s eighth win, but their first since 2017, as the previous six wins have been won by Lake Wales (four) and Lakeland (two) combined. George Jenkins still leads the way with 13 wins since the award was created in 1993-94.
“It’s great,” Winter Haven athletic director Le’Dorn Gibson said, “Honestly, I’m an alumnus, a former coach and now the athletic director, so this is big. It’s definitely big for me, but, you know, I’m trying to bring Winter Haven sports back to the top, not just one or two sports, but all sports. So this is a great accomplishment for our athletic program and it’s a great accomplishment academically, so you put those two together and I mean, this is happening the way we hoped it would.”
For Gibson, it’s not just about winning, it’s about getting students involved.
“We’re putting numbers up,” she said, then added, “I think we’re doing it the right way, because we’re students first and athletes second, and academically, I think our overall GPA was 3.4305 (athletic division), which is great.”
Winter Haven won district championships in football and volleyball and finished fourth in the fall with 87 points, behind Lakeland (118), Lake Wales (99) and George Jenkins (91).
Thanks to the performances of both boys and girls basketball’s final four teams, Winter Haven came out victorious in the winter and moved into second place with 189 points, behind Lakeland (201).
Winter Haven was helped by its top track and field results in the spring, but the difference was in the newest sports added in the spring: flag football, beach volleyball and boys volleyball. Winter Haven earned a combined 45 points in those sports, with George Jenkins having 25. That 20-point difference helped Winter Haven win by 10 points.
“We’re open to that,” Gibson said.
George Jenkins does not have boys lacrosse, but strong performances from the baseball team (district champion, regional runner-up), softball (district runner-up) and boys and girls track and field teams (two district champions, one regional champion) led the Eagles to a spring championship with 165 points.
McKeel defeats Lakeland Christian
The small school matchup was between McKeel and Lakeland Christian, one of the teams that had split the past six titles evenly. McKeel won its fourth overall title by 32 points over LCS, which had won the small school title 22 times.
McKeel led by 33 points after the fall thanks to strengths in volleyball, swimming and golf.
Despite LCS winning the state title in girls soccer, McKeel won the winter league by 19 points, taking a commanding lead of 52. McKeel and LCS scored the same number of points in boys and girls basketball, and McKeel’s boys and girls soccer programs, including the boys team in the state semifinals, finished with 55 points, nearly matching LCS’s 65 points in soccer.
McKeel’s points in girls weightlifting and wrestling gave the Wildcats an edge this winter.
The LCS won by 20 points in the spring, but it wasn’t enough to really make a run.
