Raphael Eccher goal: Wolfson-Bolles district high school boys soccer
Wolfson’s Raphael Eccher scored the game-winning goal against Bolles in the District 3-3A high school boys soccer final. See the video.
Spread from sideline to sideline of the Semmes Athletic Center, nearly two dozen Episcopal seniors put pen to paper Wednesday to confirm their college sports destinations.
Lacrosse, soccer, baseball, triathlon, Canadian football…
Wait… triathlon? Canadian football?
Senior Eagles Lucrezia Gowdy and Alexander Hillyard are both heading a little off the beaten path athletically for the next steps in their careers, with Gowdy signing for Denver’s women’s triathlon team and Hillyard off to the University of British Columbia for football, CFL-style.
The road from triathlon novice to college signee spanned less than two years for Gowdy. A top runner for Episcopal with regional runner-up finishes in both cross country and track, she added the triathlon to her schedule in the summer of 2023.
“I had a friend that said she was signing up for one, and I was like ‘Oh, I’ll do it with you,’ and I loved it,” she said. “I ended up training by myself for the next one later that summer, I got a coach, then I just started training really hard and I started looking at colleges and talking to college coaches. And it just really took off.”
That led her to Denver, among the strongest of a small number of colleges competing in NCAA triathlon. The Pioneers placed fifth behind Arizona, Arizona State, Queens University of Charlotte and TCU at November’s national championships in Clermont.
“I was growing up swimming, and then I started doing cross country in high school, so having the ability to go and compete in a sport that’s a combination of things I’ve done most of my life is a blessing,” she said. “I’m really excited.”
The college triathlon season takes place in fall, with stops including the Angostura State Recreation Area in Hot Springs, S.D., and the Marine Creek Reservoir in Fort Worth, Texas.
Hillyard, meanwhile, found a destination even more distant than Denver.
In spite of his two-time All-First Coast kicking career, converting 10 field goals as a junior and 13 this fall with a pair of 52-yarders, he found collegiate roster spots scarce. Following some family research into the British Columbia program, he turned his eyes north of the border.
“They gave me a good opportunity for success,” he said. “In the United States, there’s a lot of good kickers on every roster, and I wanted to play at a place where I could play as a freshman and then all four years.”
With British Columbia’s team, called the Thunderbirds, Hillyard will be racking up some serious mileage, or at least its metric counterpart. UBC competes in the Canada West conference against the universities of Alberta, Calgary, Manitoba, Regina and Saskatchewan, and reached the semifinal of this year’s Hardy Cup.
Hillyard is already processing the adjustments to the Canadian football rulebook, which includes goalposts on the goal line rather than the end line, as well as the one-point single or rouge for punts or kicks that the receiving team cannot clear from the end zone.
“The field’s a little bit wider, so probably some of the punts are going to be directional and a few kickoffs are directional,” he said.
In the big picture, though, Hillyard — who also leads the forward line on the Episcopal soccer team — doesn’t expect a major change in approach.
“The uprights are the uprights,” he said. “I’ve just got to put it through.”
Bears girls wrestle to county title
Bartram Trail earned 87 points for top honors in the St. Johns County Championships for girls wrestling, held at Nease.
Vivian Williams went unbeaten in the 140/145-pound division to lead the Bears. Other division winners were Beachside’s Gabriela Gill (130/135), Creekside’s Alyssa Latorre (105/110) and Zara Exilus (155/170), St. Augustine’s Trinity Wanamaker (115/120) and Taylor Pelchat (125) and Tocoi Creek’s Kassidy Grundy (100). Ponte Vedra did not compete at the meet.
Girls wrestling now enters postseason, beginning district tournaments on Wednesday across Northeast Florida.
District 2 competes at Westside, beginning at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday; District 3 starts at 3:30 p.m. at Middleburg; and District 4 starts at 2:30 p.m. at Flagler Palm Coast. That’s the first step leading to regionals, on Feb. 22 at Panama City Bay, and ultimately to the state championships from March 6-8 in Kissimmee.
Boys district wrestling quickly follows. That schedule consists of District 1-3A, starting 10 a.m. Feb. 17 at Fletcher; District 2-2A, 2:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at Tallahassee Chiles; District 3-2A, 2:30 p.m. Feb. 20 at Westside; District 4-2A, 10 a.m. Feb. 20 at New Smyrna Beach; District 2-1A, 3 p.m. Feb. 18 at Liberty County; District 3-1A, 10 a.m. Feb. 19 at Yulee; District 4-1A, 10 a.m. Feb. 19 at Episcopal; and District 5-1A, 12 p.m. Feb. 19 at Crystal River.
Beyer, Kane hit quadruple figures
St. Johns County added two more members of the 1,000-point club.
Tocoi Creek’s Audrey Beyer scored her 1,000th in Thursday’s semifinals of the District 3-6A girls basketball tournament, a 56-30 victory over Gainesville Buchholz. The junior guard, averaging 18.8 points per game, has a year left to further boost her total and perhaps make a run at 1,500 points as a senior.
Beachside senior Kendall Kane also hit the 1,000-point mark as Beachside won the District 4-5A tournament. Her career includes 222 points in her freshman season at Bartram Trail, 112 with non-FHSAA program DME Academy and 730 over the past two years at Beachside.
Those schools might be celebrating 1,000 again before long: Tocoi Creek’s Gabi Iturralde and Beachside’s Morgan Cremen are both on pace to attain 1,000 points at some point in 2025-26.
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