Eight Student Athletes Sign Scholarships to Play at the Next Level
Current and future teammates Gabriella Segre and Sara Arrojo share a laugh during signing day.
May 13, 2022
On May 6, 2022, eight South Dade students signed their scholarships to continue their athletic and academic careers at the college level for their respective sports, including wrestling, soccer, and football.
The featured athletes all announced where they will be attending later this year, showing their gratitude towards their families, teachers, coaches, and peers. These students worked tirelessly to succeed in their craft, and in receiving these scholarships they proved to themselves, their community, and their school of choice that it was worth it.
The day also marked history for the girls wrestling as four athletes received their scholarships for their exemplary success. Ferny Hernandez, who will be attending Iowa Western Community College, showed immense gratitude towards her support system at school, preaching that “as you give, you get back,” playing a large part in her success. She also expressed the hardship that came with the process of pursuing college. “The process was scary because I didn’t have the tools to help me, but out of my family, I will be the first to graduate high school,” said Ferny. As someone who helped found and build up the girls wrestling team at South Dade, Natalie Duran, who signed to Iowa Western Community College as well, is sad to leave something that she started, but only hopes to see future teams flourish after a strong foundation was built. “I hope that they look up to our accomplishments to get better and learn from what we did,” said Natalie. Sara Arrojo and Gabriella Serge will be nearby as they both will be attending Northern Iowa Area Community College.
The community that surrounds these students is of utmost importance to them, and moving on to college is bittersweet. Alexander Couto, who committed to Life University with his teammate Adrian Morales, looks forward to this next step. With some of his former teammates already training at the university, he isn’t too worried about transitioning from high school to university. “Georgia isn’t that far away from home, and some of my old teammates are already there, so it’s going to feel like home,” said Alexander.
The coaches congratulated their athletes, extremely proud of what these students have accomplished and what they will hopefully accomplish in college and further on. “From when I began here in 1993, this school has gone from seeing kids be the first to graduate high school, to now getting 6 or 7 kids going to college,” said wrestling coach Victor Balmeceda.
Rounding out the group of signees are Victor Sanchez who committed to play football at Clark University and Krystal Martinez who committed to the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie for softball.
