By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

As the new school year gets under way, the question is whether Osceola County’s public and private athletic programs will improve from their performance during the 2009-10 school year?

Most of the county’s athletic programs marginally upgraded their performance over 2008-09 according to the Florida High School Athletic Association’s Floyd E. Lay Sunshine Cup all-sports standings for 2009-10.

Scores are determined by each member school’s performance in the FHSAA State Series competitions.

The top 16 schools in each sport receive points. State champions earn 100 points. Bonus points are awarded for winning district and regional championships.

Points are deducted for conduct infractions, such as player or coach ejections.

The scores reflect the combined points totals of boys and girls sports.

Celebration (155) made the biggest leap among the county schools in the FHSAA standings, to 37th in Class 4A. Celebration got a boost from its boys soccer team, which reached the regional finals. Last year, the Storm (22) were 88th.

Harmony (116) slipped from 39th last year (149 points) to 49th in Class 4A, while St. Cloud (22.5) moved up to 89th place from 98th (3.5 points). Poinciana (4) improved to 97th place from 99th (1.5) in 2008-09.

Liberty (26) advanced to 77th in the Class 5A rankings after having a negative score last year.

Gateway (1) is 101st in Class 6A. It had a negative score for 2008-09.

New Dimensions (5) moved to 20th in the Class 2A rankings after not posting a score last year.

Osceola High (161) scored the most points of any county school and placed 35th in the Class 5A rankings, but that was less than half the total OHS had for 2008-09 (323), when the Kowboys placed 23rd overall.

Even though Harmony slipped in the FHSAA standings last season, the school continued to dominate the Orange Belt Conference standings.

Harmony has won the county’s All-Sports crown for the past three years.

All Class A private schools in Osceola County, Southland Christian, City of Life Academy and Life Christian, had no points, the same as last year.

Osceola County was well represented at the top of the state’s academic all-state teams, where more than three dozen squads ranked among the state’s highest team GPAs in their respective sports last year.

Harmony’s Jared Beekman was one of 24 FHSAA all-state academic/athletic scholars last year.

Winter Park (1,173), the Class 6A champion, scored more Floyd Lay Sunshine Cup points than any of the 669 FHSAA member schools.