- May 11, 2026
When Mark Gabbard took over Father Lopez’s boys weightlifting program before last season, he immediately went about changing the team’s culture. But there were two lifters he didn’t have to worry about.
Joseph Abrantes and Maverick Grimm each won a Class 1A state championship on Friday, May 8, at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland. The two titles in the Olympic competition propelled the Green Wave to a runner-up Olympic finish behind state champ Keystone Heights.
“I inherited a couple of kids that are pretty phenomenal,” Gabbard said.
Abrantes won the 154-pound Olympic title with a 480-pound total in snatch and clean-and-jerk lifts. Grimm won the 169-pound Olympic title by 60 pounds with a 525-pound total. They both also placed in the traditional competition with Abrantes placing second and Grimm placing third.
Abrantes had a chance to win both titles, coming up five pounds short to Fort White’s Jonathan Ulsch in traditional with a 550-pound total.
“Joe had a chance going into the last bench press,” Gabbard said. “He went after it (with a 295-pound attempt), but couldn’t complete it.”
In Olympic, Abrantes won by 10 pounds over Ulsch and Lake Highland Prep’s Zach Kirson. He hit a 265-pound clean and jerk on his last lift and Ulsch and Kirson both missed at 280.
“Both of Joe’s competitions were incredible,” Gabbard said. “[In Olympic], the two other kids weren’t prepared to get those lifts. He put pressure on them to go higher than they were comfortable with.”
Grimm dominated the Olympic lifts despite hitting only his first snatch of 225 pounds. He jumped up to 240 but couldn’t hit it in two attempts. Still, his 225 was the top snatch among all the 169-pound competitors, and his 300-pound clean and jerk was 25 pounds more than the next best lifter. In traditional, Grimm had a 540-pound total in traditional. Jackson Jones of First Academy won the 169-pound traditional title with a 605-pound total.
Last year, Abrantes was the runner-up in both competitions in the 139-pound class, and Grimm was second in Olympic and third in traditional at 169. They are both juniors, so they will be back next year with a chance to repeat.
The Green Wave qualified eight lifters to the state championships, a year after qualifying three. Only one of the eight qualifiers in a senior. Gabbard came to Father Lopez from Arizona two years ago because of football. He was the Green Wave’s offensive coordinator his first year and became the head coach last season.
But when he was named weightlifting coach in December of 2025, he wanted to make it clear that the team was not an extension of the football program.
“One thing we did immediately was change the culture and expectations,” he said. “We introduced a competitive mentality, and the kids bought into that. The result was kids wanted to come in and compete. This year, for the first time in a long time here, we had to make cuts.
“One thing I wanted to make sure was this wouldn’t be just a bunch of football players wanting to get more weightlifting in,” Gabbard said. “We wanted to make sure the two programs were separate.”
Of the Green Wave’s two state champs, Grimm is a football player; Abrantes isn’t.
