Foundation Academy boys weightlifting wins Regional Championship

Lions lead West, Southwest Orange as only team champs, while the area athletes across classifications claimed 12 total individual titles.

By Sam Albuquerque
| 8:30 p.m. April 7, 2025

The Foundation Academy boys weightlifting team celebrated its district championship win.

Sports
High Schools

The Foundation Academy boys weightlifting team has claimed the Class 1A, Region 3 Championship in both the Traditional and Olympic categories. The Lions lifters narrowly snuck past St. Stephen's Episcopal School by a combined nine points across the two categories, 26-21 in the traditional lifts and 32-28 in the Olympic lifts.

Leading the way for Foundation was the trio of lifters that claimed individual regional championships in both categories: Diego Nieves at 119 pounds, Jadon Johnson at 183 and Steven Ford at 219.

Along with the three Lions winners, The First Academy’s Noah Devine, a Bethune-Cookman football signee, also claimed an individual regional crown in both categories in the unlimited weight class.

In the Class 3A, Region 2 championships the West, Southwest Orange County area saw four more of its athletes win individual regional titles, all in the Traditional category: A pair of West Orange High athletes — Luca Bruno at 154 and Mason Gifford in the unlimited class — Windermere High’s Joseph McNicholas at 169 and Horizon High’s Tyler Mette at 183.

author

Sam Albuquerque

A native of João Pessoa, Brazil, Sam Albuquerque moved in 1997 to Central Florida as a kid. After earning a communications degree in 2016 from the University of Central Florida, he started his career covering sports as a producer for a local radio station, ESPN 580 Orlando. He went on to earn a master’s degree in editorial journalism from Northwestern University, before moving to South Carolina to cover local sports for the USA Today Network’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. When he’s not working, you can find him spending time with his lovely wife, Sarah, newborn son, Noah, and dog named Skulí.