WINCHESTER — Even if the weather impedes its ability to practice, the Sherando High School wrestling team finds a way to prepare for opponents.
Whether it means scouring the area for an open wrestling room or hitting the sauna to break a sweat, Sherando’s Anthony Lucchiani said the team does everything it can to stay active while schools are closed.
That preparation worked in the Warriors’ favor on Wednesday, as Sherando had six wrestlers go 2-0 in Thursday’s quad in Casey Gymnasium to lead Sherando to a 2-0 finish over Millbrook and Brentsville. The Warriors defeated Millbrook 45-29 and Brentsville 49-26. They elected not to wrestle James Wood after the two teams already had a dual earlier this month.
Wood went 1-1, defeating Millbrook 41-27 and falling to Brentsville 21-13. Millbrook finished 1-2, defeating Brentsville 40-35.
After winning against Brentsville in the opening round, Sherando coach Brian Kibler thought his team knocked the rust off versus the Pioneers, who previously went 4-1 and placed third at the 10-team Heritage Invitational on Saturday.
“In the second match against Millbrook, I thought we did much better,” Kibler said. “I thought we attacked more, scored a lot more points, and that’s obviously the name of our game.”
After Millbrook won two straight matches to bring its deficit in the dual to 12-8, Sherando won three straight matches — all by pin — to take a 30-8 lead. The first six points came from Lucchiani (138 pounds), who went 2-0. He had a forfeit victory against Brentsville and pinned Millbrook’s David Rackmales with 58 seconds left in the first period.
Carter Straight (144) then pinned Millbrook’s Alex Stubblefield with 55 seconds left in the second period after going up 10-0. Conner Orth (150) rounded out the three straight wins with a pin in the third period over Millbrook’s Brian Hershberger.
“Honestly, it felt great,” Lucchiani said. “I mean, nerves were high. Obviously, a district dual, [we] didn’t want to come out here and lose because we haven’t really lost a match to any of our district teams in a long time… but obviously, there’s a lot of nerves coming out here because we’re a younger program now. But, I mean, [we] got the job done. Everybody wrestled pretty well.”
Joining Lucchiani in the 2-0 club for Sherando was Straight (2 pins), Kaden Frock (106, 2 technical falls), Damien Costello (120, 1 pin), Ben Taylor (175, 1 major decision) and Judson Dean (215, 1 pin).
James Wood had three wrestlers go 2-0 and three go 1-0. Hayden Black (106, 2 pins), Seth Merryman (126, 1 major decision) and Sean Hodel (150, 1 technical fall) all won their two matches. Austin Noble (144, 1 technical fall), Aiden Henry (165) and Orion Cox (215, 1 major decision) all went 1-0.
With the 1-1 split on Thursday, the Colonels moved to 9-4 in duals this season.
James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw compared Thursday’s dual against Millbrook to the one against Sherando earlier this month, when the Colonels fell to Sherando on a tiebreaker after both teams had little to no practice time due to weather.
“When you’re coming in your across-town scenarios here, you always want to do well against each other,” Crenshaw said. “We wrestled smart. I’m not going to say we wrestled to the best of what we could. I thought last week when we wrestled Sherando, our guys kind of stepped up a little bit more to the plate [than] tonight. We still got the ‘W’ of course, but there was a little bit of a different attitude, I would say, towards our guys. So that’s something we need to kind of get ready for and fix.”
As for the defeat against Brentsville, Crenshaw said the Tigers didn’t have a full lineup, so the Colonels elected to double forfeit six matches.
Falling to James Wood and Sherando, Millbrook coach Jeff Holmes was far from pleased with how Thursday went.
“We didn’t wrestle to our potential. I mean, that’s really all I can say,” Holmes said. “We got to do better, and I take responsibility. I got to get our guys more prepared. We just didn’t wrestle to our potential.”
Millbrook’s William Potter was one of the bright spots for the Pioneers, finishing 3-0 (2 pins, 1 forfeit).
Potter’s longest match of the night came against Sherando’s Jason Foster, who was 20-6 heading into Thursday.
After Foster got an early takedown in the first period, Potter responded with a reversal to exit the first period down 3-2. The match didn’t last much longer after that, as Potter pinned Foster 35 seconds into the period. After the pin, Potter got up and put his hands up to pump up the crowd while sticking his tongue out.
Potter’s celebratory antics were following a previous bout versus Foster at the district tournament earlier this month, when Potter won by technical fall. Going into Thursday’s rematch, Potter was hoping for an even better outcome.
“I have a lot of family here and people that support me who came out today,” Potter said. “I always go out in every match trying to pin them. That’s what I want to do. I want to pin him. I want to win every match, and I feel like I proved something to myself today. [Foster] came out very hard [and fast] in the first period, and I tend to break people and I did it again today. I felt very vindicated because I wasn’t happy with how my match went against him the districts, but I was pretty happy today.”
After Potter pined Foster, Holmes cracked a smile and gave Potter a thumbs up while the sophomore walked back to the bench.
“Will is our guy,” Holmes said. “He’s one of our better guys. He’s somebody that is gonna go out there and do whatever he needs to do. I kind of told him, like, ‘I want you to get the pin.’ And he said ‘OK,’ and that’s what he went out there and did.”
Ezra Doyle-Naegeli (285, 1 pin) also went undefeated Thursday, coming up with two forfeits and a pin against Sherando’s Kaden Hurst (5:06).
Holmes said Hurst defeated Doyle-Naegeli in overtime in last year’s district tournament, so there was added motivation in the rematch.
“Ezra just kind of had the desire to redeem himself after the loss [last year],” Holmes said. “He went out there and wrestled the way he was capable of. Good things happen when he pushes the action and does his tie ups, his moves, that’s usually the outcome.”
Other Millbrook leaders included Bryan Gomez (132, 3-0, 2 major decisions) and Landon Jones (113, 2-1, 1 pin, 1 major decision).
— Contact Justin Robertson at jrobertson@winchesterstar.com
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