Miranda Ermilus is ready to start her second season of weightlifting

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – This week’s ABC7 Athlete of the Week is Miranda Ermilus. This young lady is a 10th grader at Booker High School (BHS) on the weightlifting and track teams.

She is coming off a freshman season in which she finished as a district winner, but she has much higher goals in her second year with this program. “I’m fine,” said Ermilus. “I’m trying to work on getting stronger because I actually want to go to the United States this year. So things are going very well.”

Ermilus knows that she cannot achieve her goals alone. It takes a team and she feels like she is surrounded by a great group that motivates each other. “As we were lifting, our teammates would probably be yelling like you can do it,” Ermilus said. “Put energy into it. (We) also do team bonding outside of school.”

There is a lot of optimism for the upcoming season because this team has grown tremendously, and so has Ermilus. One of her coaches says the biggest growth he has seen in this young lady is her maturity.

“Last year was her freshman year,” Sheldon Cantrell, the BHS assistant. Girls weightlifting coach said. “When she came in, she really wasn’t that good and she was very playful. As the year went on, she started to settle down and became more interested in getting stronger.

Ermilus’ physical growth is also there. Her head coach tells ABC7 that she sees Ermilus getting stronger. “Miranda is a motivated, young athlete who strives to be great,” said BHS head girls weightlifting coach Tarra Driskell.

For Ermilus, she uses her training as a way to build discipline in the classroom and achieve her future career goals. “When I get older, I’m pretty sure I want to be a neurosurgeon. If not, then it’s a traveling nurse.”