27-03-2025
Mater Lakes' Neifeld and South Dade's Balmeceda are the Dade Wrestling Coaches of the Year
Mater Lakes' boys made school history.
And South Dade's boys added to their already historic state championship run while their girls got close to their first title.
Both wrestling programs won state championships this past season in both the duals and individually-bracketed tournaments in their respective classes.
As a result, their coaches - Brandon Neifeld at Mater Lakes and Victor Balmeceda and Gamaliel Duran at South Dade are the Miami Herald's Wrestling Coaches of the Year for Miami-Dade County.
Neifeld and Balmeceda share Boys' Wrestling Coach of the Year honors while Duran wins on the girls' wrestling side.
After coming close in recent years, Neifeld led Mater Lakes' boys to its first ever state duals title in Class 1A and the Bears followed that up with a dominant performance to capture the 1A title in the individually-bracketed tournament earlier this month in Kissimmee.
Mater Lakes totaled 212 points to finish clear ahead of second-place Zephyrhills Christian's 149.
The Bears placed six wrestlers in the championship matches and five came away with state titles, including Kellen Mesina (113), Keagan Mesina (120), Ethan Tran (126), Kalias Nazario (165) and Damian Soto (190). Christopher Greene finished as state runner-up at 132.
'This team has been around for four and five years. It's been the same group of guys,' Neifeld, who has been the school's coach for 13 years, said at the state meet. 'We should have won last year but we lost a tough one at the end. This year we just knew it was going to be our year and it's been incredible.'
Balmeceda, meanwhile, directed the South Dade boys to another stellar season that included state titles in both formats once again.
South Dade now has 27 wrestling state championship trophies having also won its seventh Duals state title earlier this year. The 20 IBT titles is the most for any Miami-Dade program and trails only Brandon High's 28 on the state's all-time list. The Bucs won their 12th in a row, which is the second-longest title streak in state history behind Brandon's 16 in a row from 2001-2017.
South Dade placed nine wrestlers in the finals and came away with six individual champions, including Guillermo Jaramillo (126), Jovani Solis (138), Elvis Solis (144), Armand Williams (150), Tyree Graham (157) and Willie White (165).
'Realistically, anyone would have been happy to get four or five guys in the finals, but we went 18-0 on Day 2 with the quarterfinals and semifinals,' Balmeceda said after the state IBT meet. 'They answered the bell.'
On the girls' side, South Dade had its own successful season under Duran's tutelage as they tied for the second-most points in the state (106) behind Flagler Palm Coast's 150.
Willow White led the Bucs at 120 pounds by completing an unbeaten state championship season.
