Members of the Meridian High School girls powerlifting team have heard the remarks all too often.

“Girls can’t lift weights,” or something similar have been directed at them at least a few times, senior Avaiona Smith said.

For Smith and her teammates, the thrill of winning an MHSAA Class III girls powerlifting championship was that much sweeter in light of those comments. The Lady Wildcats captured their eighth state title in program history at the state meet in Jackson last week, and Smith even set an all-time record with a 155-pound bench press and a Class III state championship record in the squat with 385 pounds.

“It’s a big factor,” Smith said of the comments in terms of how they motivate the team. “Nobody wants to hear you can’t do it, so it makes us want to go hard and prove everyone else wrong.”

Once the girls had won the title, Smith said it felt wonderful to know she and her sisters had the last laugh.

“It’s a wonderful feeling; I can’t even explain it,” Smith said. “It’s everything you’ve ever wished for, because people doubted you so much that, when you do it, you just want to slap them in the face with it.”

Meridian powerlifting coach Demetrius Hill said he does sense the naysayers are a big part of what fuels his lifters.

“It has a big factor,” Hill said. “Guys seem to think females are not as strong as they are, and they’ve proven in the last 10 years that we’re just as strong when they set their minds to it.”

Disappointment from the year before also played a role, Hill added. Though the Lady Wildcats already had seven titles to their name, falling short in 2016 made them hungry to reestablish themselves as Class III’s dominant program.

“Last year, I think they realized they fell off and didn’t perform like they should have,” Hill said. “This year, they got really serious in the offseason about what they should have done and came back here and proved we could get the job done.”

While the quest to maintain excellence is a good motivational tool, junior Miranda Adams said it’s not a situation where the lifters feel pressured by the expectations.

“There’s no pressure,” Adams said. “When we’re at practice, we know what we have to do in order to win a state title, being that we’ve won it eight times. It’s more working on technique and knowing what to do. When district, South State and state rolls around, it’s, ‘OK, it’s time to get to work.’”

Kaselyn Stennis set an all-time record at the state meet by squatting 560 pounds, and Stennis said though she wasn’t able to squat that much in practice, the stage of a state championship meet forced her to up the weight — that, and her father telling her not to squat anything less than 560 pounds.

“It was something I thought I couldn’t do because I didn’t do it in practice,” Stennis said. “I just praise God I got the weight I did. … At a meet, it’s a different atmosphere. You have to get that weight no matter what if you want to win, and I just pushed myself.”

A common theme amongst the girls is the family atmosphere of the team, and that’s something Stennis said they stressed to everyone as early as tryouts.

“When we have tryouts, whoever makes the tryouts, we tell them it’s a family thing,” Stennis said. “When we’re at practice, we cheer each other on. It’s true that we have our ups and downs, but we come back and are sisters again.”

Winning a championship as a family just makes the victory that much sweeter, Smith said, and their bond comes from how much time they spend together in the weight room.

“It comes from practice every day and being around each other,” Smith said. “You grow to like each other a lot. From the summer, working out with each other, it’s just been a family ever since. … I feel like we had to grow together to win together.”

Adams said both Hill and coach Calvin Hampton deserve a lot of credit for the team’s success. Hill and Hampton are both football coaches, and Adams said they bring that knowledge to the weight room by giving the girls intense routines in order to maximize their potential. 

“The workouts they give us are the most hardcore practices ever,” Adams explained. “It prepares us for state. Coach Hill and Coach Hampton are excellent coaches, and they coach well together. We love them.”

Said Smith, “Our coaches push us every day, and they don’t let us give up on ourselves. They’re what makes us who we are in bringing home the titles every year.”

While the workouts may be intense, Adams said they don’t mind, since the results speak for themselves.

“We do get tired sometimes, but we know in the end it’s going to pay for itself, so it’s awesome,” Smith said.