Class AAA teams ready for Monday
Apr. 18—Wrestling teams will be looking for good things to happen this week in Huntington. Greenbrier East already got plenty of good news over the weekend.
A Covid-19 scare had the Spartans crossing their fingers. Fortunately, all contact tracing turned out well and East will be competing in the state tournament.
"We are 100 percent and all wrestlers are going to Huntington," first-year head coach Mark Solak said. "I think this is three weeks in a row. Friday school was closed for contact tracing and we made it through every single one of them.
"We told the boys to be careful. Hang out with wrestlers. Be socially distant from people that weren't wrestlers. So I guess it worked."
And now they're ready to go, primed for a state tournament with a different format.
The Class AAA portion will be wrestled Monday and Tuesday at Mountain Health Arena. Wrestling Monday morning will begin with the first round at 11 a.m. The championship quarterfinals and the first two consolation rounds will begin at 4:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, the championship semifinals and all remaining consolation rounds will start at 10 a.m. Championship matches will then begin at 6:30 p.m.
Class AA-A will be wrestled Wednesday and Thursday and will follow the same schedule.
Oak Hill goes in with eight state qualifiers and is coming off a runner-up finish at the Class AAA Region 3 tournament last weekend. It was the team's highest-ever finish in Class AAA.
Some people might have been surprised by the Red Devils' showing, but coach David Vincent is not among them.
"Saturday before the regionals, I got all the kids together and told them I felt strongly we could finish second," he said. "And they did. They all came together. They did what they needed to do."
Eli Sedlock won the 145-pound Region 3 title and picked up his 100th career win in the semifinals.
The other state qualifiers for Oak Hill were Aaron Higginbotham (third, 126), Case Bryant (fourth, 138), Mason Wills (second, 152), Sam Evans (fourth, 160), Dominique Johnson (third, 182), Maxwell Underwood (third, 195), Mike Cole (fourth, 220) and Colton Naylor (fourth, 285).
"I like where we are standing," Vincent said. "I think our guys are peaking at the right time. I expect some strong performances at the state tournament out of the kids that we have. Specifically Sedlock. I like how he is peaking right now, and we have some underclassmen that are peaking right now. We're going to need results and performances from everybody across the board."
Woodrow Wilson came out of Region 3 with three champions — sophomore Ethan Osborne (138) and seniors Hezekyiah Creasy (152) and Devan Gauldin (195). Other qualifiers for the Flying Eagles were Kaiden Radford (second, 106), Ryan Muktar (fourth, 120), Jay Jones (third, 170) and Jackson Evans (second, 285).
Flying Eagles coach Matt Osborne was expecting to have two more qualifiers, but Alex Webb had to injury default at 160 and 220-pound freshman Hinckley Carter lost weight as the season progressed and was undersized.
"You've got a couple guys peaking right now, which is the goal for the whole team," Osborne said on Tuesday. "But hopefully in the next couple of practices we can get some of the ones that aren't to get on board."
With all testing behind them, the Spartans will be able to send all seven of their state qualifiers, including Region 3 champs — Colby Piner (160) and Thomas Mullins (220). Other qualifiers were Chase Martin (fourth, 113), Micah Fisher (fourth, 132), Bryson Ormsbee (third, 145), Craig Barnhouse (third, 152) and Landen Hoover (second, 182).
Fisher found out Friday that she will move up to the third place position out of Region 3 after runner-up Thomas Hartley of George Washington had to withdraw.
Solak was disappointed in the team's overall showing at Region 3.
"Our first round did not got well at all, which hurts your team points and knocked us out of the possibility of being able to compete for the state duals championship next year," he said. "The fact that a few of our wrestlers didn't perform as they could have really hurt us.
"But it's not their fault. I'm going to blame it on Covid, because we were not able to get into some of those big tournaments this year. They showed up at their biggest tournament of the year so far and they were cold coming out. We work toward that all year, usually hit some big tournaments ... to kind of set them up for that stage. Being able to wrestle with a large group of people and real good wrestlers there. We weren't able to do that this year, and being the fact that half of our team is young, it hurt us."
Email: gfauber@register-herald.com
