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Powerful Feeling

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By MARTY MILLER

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: February 14, 2009

It is almost certain Springstead High girls weightlifter Frances Pagan has never heard the Helen Reedy song of the 1970's "I Am Woman." But if she did, the Eagle senior who Saturday competes in the state meet at River Ridge High School in New Port Richey would agree with the lyrics.
"I like the energy it gives me. It makes me feel powerful and it makes me feel like I can do anything a guy can do," she said when asked why she liked weightlifting so much.
"It's just a feeling that I'm getting stronger and more powerful after every practice, I'm never tired."
Pagan enters the state meet ranked 18th in the pre-meet standings, but the difference in weights of the people ahead of her is very small.
"If she has a good day Saturday, she could come home with a medal," said her coach, Mike Garofano. "She deserves it because she has really worked hard for it."
Pagan said her mother was at first not excited about her starting the sport.
"She was kind of worried I might get hurt," she said. "I told her I liked it and it would help me in swimming. And now she's my biggest fan and goes to all of my meets. It worked out really well."
Her coach says that the senior has worked a lot to get to where she is today.
"She's really been working four years to get to this level," Garofano said. "She wanted to learn and I can help her only so much. But in the end, it comes down to how much they want it."
Last year lifting at 189 pounds, Pagan finished far down in the standings and came into her senior year determined to do better.
"I told myself this is my senior year and I'm going to states no matter what I have to do," she said. "I want to make an impression so this year I worked my butt off and I did everything Coach Garofano told me."
After qualifying for the state meet by finishing third at the Region V meet in Belleview, Pagan said she was happy.
"I was so shocked," she said. "I jumped all over my coach and yelled my head off."
But just going to states is not enough for Pagan. "Weightlifting isn't fun," she said. "But it's the feeling you get after winning that makes it fun."

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