CALEDONIA — Dalton Cantrell crunched the numbers all season.
The Caledonia High School junior knew his best weight in the squat was better than Newton County High’s Luke Williams. He knew they were pretty close in the bench press and that Williams probably had the advantage if things came down to the dead lift.
On the big stage of the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 4A State meet, things change, though, as nerves and the enormity of the moment hits competitors.
Cantrell was ready for all of it, as he recorded personal-best marks in all three events in the 308-pound plus weight class last Saturday to win his first state title with a combined weight total of 1,665 pounds.
“I knew I would at least be if not the top or I would be second,” said Cantrell, who was only 25 pounds ahead of Williams entering the state meet.
Cantrell opened with a lift of 650 pounds on the squat. He scratched at 700 before getting 725 on his final lift. He opened with 320 on the bench press. He scratched at 345 pounds and then recorded a lift of 350 on his third try.
Following the first two events, Cantrell was 35 pounds ahead of Williams, so he thought about his numbers and made some calculations.
On the dead lift, an event he acknowledged was his weakest of the three, Cantrell opened with a 520. He jumped to 570 on his second lift and increased his best mark to 590 on the third attempt.
“I honestly didn’t think I was going to get it,” said Cantrell, who also plays on the offensive and defensive lines on the school’s football team.
“I came up and my back wasn’t locked, but I locked my knees to try to get it and they gave it to me. Thank goodness, so he had to pull 625 to beat me.”
Cantrell then had to wait to see if Williams could beat him. When Williams didn’t get the weight he needed on his last lift, Cantrell exhaled and celebrated a season’s worth of hard work that went into realizing his goal. The journey came after he failed to reach the Class 4A State meet in 2017.
Cantrell said the 2018 season was one of discovery in which he hit marks he had never reached and gained confidence. He pointed to the district or regional meet when he hit 700 in the squat for the first time. He said reaching other personal-best weights in the bench press and dead lift enabled him to have a mental breakthrough that convinced him he could go even higher.
Getting ready
Cantrell said he spent the last month pouring over spread sheets to compare his best marks to Williams’ bests. He used those marks as motivation in his training so he could erase two years of frustration.
“It has shown me a lot about who I am,” said Cantrell, who is in his third season on the school’s weight lifting team.
“It is an every-day thing. When you wake up in the morning, who wants to come up here early and do all of this and that. We work out pretty much every day. It is kind of like a habit. Once you know your limits, you just have to push those farther than what you can think you can do. That is when you become better.”
Cantrell compared pushing himself in powerlifting to how he and all football players try to push themselves through in the fourth quarter. He said winning a state championship has whetted his appetite for another title. Cantrell said he plans to work even harder to shoot for state records in the squat, bench press, and dead lift so he can finish his career with another gold medal and own state records for biggest lifts in his weight class.
“After I lost these last two years, I knew something I had to push myself further than what I had been doing,” Cantrell said. “I knew I had to push myself because I was tired of losing. I had never gotten past North Half and all of my buddies were making fun of me.
“The biggest thing was bringing it back to Caledonia. … I just knew I had to win it. It is humbling.”
n New Hope High’s Trey Bailey finished fifth in the 132-pound weight class with a total of 925.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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