By T. Scott Boatright
Cedar Creek School’s Carter Lewis had a lot to follow after cheering on CCS graduate Lawson Lillo to a national title at the Powerlifting America National Championships in Reno, Nevada, on Wednesday.
But Lewis followed through like a true champion on Thursday as he snatched first-place honors of his own in the 190-pound weight class.
Now both Lewis and Lillo, now a Louisiana Tech student, will focus on pumping even more iron as they get to gearing up for the World Championships that will be held in Costa Rica in late August.
Lewis lifted 292.5 KG (645 pounds) in the squat, 187.5 in the bench (413 pounds) and 317.5 700 pounds in the deadlift for a total of 1,758 pounds.
That deadlift is an unofficial world record. Unofficial but it doesn’t count because it wasn’t at world meet, but it was 15 pounds above the previous world record.
“I was pretty confident going in,” said Lewis, who was awarded the best male sub junior lifter. “Me and Lawson have been training together for a long time now. I felt good going into the meet.”
Making Lewis’ performance more impressive is that he took the national championship only months after suffering a big injury.
“I broke my arm four months ago, so me and Lawson have been working toward this meet for a little while, two, maybe three months,” Lewis said. “It was a freak thing — I broke my arm in early January picking up a deer.”
But the fact he was already an accomplished powerlifter helped spark a quick recovery.
“I think that really helped in making my getting back to full speed pretty fast,” Lewis said. “Lawson wrote me a program after that happened. We took it slow at first but kind of put on the gas as it got close to the national meet.”
Lewis credited the Cedar Creek powerlifting program as being a part of his success at his first national meet.
“It’s a fantastic program,” Lewis said. “One of the best if not the best in the state for powerlifting for sure. Coach (Jacob) Angevine is a fantastic coach, and lets his athletes go off on their own during the offseason like the way me and Lawson have been doing.”
Angevine said he was proud of the pair’s performance.
“Those two kids are awesome,” Angevine said. “I know Carter was pretty bummed about missing the LSPLA ( Louisiana High School Powerlifting Association) season so we were all super excited to see him lift this week. Having a guy like Lawson in his corner. too. Law is one of the best kids I’ve ever had the pleasure to coach, and it’s so cool to see him give back.”
Lewis said he got into powerlifting when he was 13.
“I was playing football with my older brother (Quincy), so I started working with him,” Lewis said. “Then I tore my ACL my freshman year and saw Quincy doing powerlifting his senior year. So watching him, and watching Lawson go to nationals his junior year (of high school). Seeing all of that, I wanted to be part of it.”
Lewis said being part of Lincoln Parish’s dynamic powerlifting duo played an important role in him taking nationals on Thursday.
“We coach each other,” Lewis said about Lillo. “He had a coaching pass for me today. I had one for him yesterday. We’re there for each other on big lifts. We know how each other lift’s work, so we kind of have it all figured out, it looks like.”
At the conclusion of the national championships on Thursday, Lillo was awarded as the best male equipped lifter at this year’s meet.
