ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0For the first time in school history, The First Academy has a state champion weightlifter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun. It\u2019s the progression of me. Like you see more plates and you want more and more. Count them out. It\u2019s fun to hear the weight knock around and then the crowd gets loud when they get real heavy. Everybody comes to join,\u201d The First Academy junior weightlifter Kyler Priester said.<\/p>\n
Priester is wrapping up his junior year at TFA. He\u2019s been weightlifting for the last three seasons to help his game on the football field. As a freshman, he made states. Now, this year, he\u2019s capping off the season as the top Olympic lifter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kid\u2019s a competitor. You have to be to win. I\u2019ll be honest. At a state level, regardless of the sport, everybody wants to finish first. But it takes a select person or a group of people to finish first,\u201d The First Academy weightlifting coach Trey Tyler said.<\/p>\n
At states, Priester combined to lift 545 pounds between the snatch and clean and jerk to secure a come-from-behind win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole city comes out. Maybe watch your family come. It\u2019s like just being able to have the ability to do this as a blessing,\u201d Priester said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis strength, his determination, his heart to see him to stand on the platform and achieve something he\u2019s been working for would be amazing,\u201d Tyler said.<\/p>\n
Over the last two years of hard work and dedication, Priester and his coach have created a special bond both on and off the mat.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much time and effort with Coach Trey. I\u2019ve been like, this is the most, like probably the most I\u2019ve ever been in any building,\u201d Priester said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get really invested in them as people. And you stop looking at athletes and you start seeing basically family members. You strive to do your best so they can do their best,\u201d Tyler said.<\/p>\n
Now, as he gets ready for his final year on the football field, he believes he\u2019ll be a much more explosive athlete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0For the first time in school history, The First Academy has a state champion weightlifter. \u201cIt\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1747,274,1748,1236,3745,2204,115,139,141,140,1746,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-282843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-high-school-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-athlete-of-the-week","tag-florida-sports","tag-high-school-sports","tag-instagram-n13","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-thomas-cook","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}