Saturday brought about redemption for both James Wood’s Hayden Black and Millbrook’s William Potter, albeit in different ways.
Black and Potter each won state titles at the two-day Class 4 state tournament at the Virginia Beach Sports Center that concluded on Saturday, with Black earning his second straight at 113 pounds, while Potter won his first at 190.
Black’s path to the championship wasn’t as smooth as last season, as an elbow injury limited him to 10 regular-season matches. Yet, after an undefeated showing at the Region 4D tournament, he remained unbeaten at states and finished the season 17-0.
In a phone interview, Black said he was able to quickly put his injury behind him because he was consistent in his approach while sidelined.
“I was always watching wrestling, always thinking about it. A lot of stretching and conditioning,” Black said. “You’ve got to be consistent and believe in your training and preparation, and then you’ll wrestle exactly how you train.”
Black defeated Salem’s Patrick Patterson in 45 seconds via pinfall to claim his second state title, capping off a tournament in which he picked up four pinfall victories. He spent five minutes and nine seconds on the mat across the weekend.
With Black’s help, the Colonels finished in fourth place, scoring 104.5 points. Sherando placed sixth with 88.5, Millbrook tied for 10th with 63.5 and Handley finished 14th with 59. Woodgrove placed first with 153.5, Loudoun County took second (112) and Salem was third (109) out of 43 schools.
The Pioneers’ top-10 finish was aided by a motivated Potter, who was searching for a state title after finishing second in the bracket last season.
Potter picked up a pinfall win in 1:38 in the opening round and earned a 10-0 major decision in the quarterfinals before defeating former state champion Ibrahim Zaky of Woodgrove (4-1) to advance to the finals. Once there, he defeated Charlottesville’s Roman Calvani via an 18-0 technical fall at the 4:59 mark to claim the championship. Potter previously defeated Calvani in the Region 4D tournament finals earlier in the month.
Pioneers’ head coach Jeff Holmes said this was “the best I’ve seen [Potter] wrestle all season, if not ever,” and Potter said he was relieved to finally pick up a win that “should’ve happened last year.”
“The worst thing I’ve had happen to me in my wrestling career was losing in the state finals last year,” Potter said. “Every match since, I’ve used that as some sort of fuel, especially as we got closer to states.
“I was a point away from teching [Calvani] in our regionals match, so I wanted to tech him really bad in the state finals match. I think that making a statement like that is important, especially for me, having lost in the finals last year.”
Though Potter said he didn’t want to take anything away from his finals win, he said his victory over Zaky felt even more fulfilling due to his two prior losses to him this season.
With the match tied 1-1 with 1:28 remaining, Potter recorded a single-leg takedown with 38 seconds left to pick up a 4-1 win against Zaky, who won a state title at 215 pounds last year.
“I knew that match was the most important match in the tournament, really. It should have been the finals match,” Potter said. “Ibrahim is a really good wrestler … so I treated it like it was the finals match. I knew exactly what I had to do, which was push him until he couldn’t push me. And that’s exactly what happened when I shot in on that single leg, and when I got in on it, I knew that I had it.
“I knew that I was going to score, which is really nice, because in our match at the beginning of the year, I was in a very similar position, but I wasn’t able to score on it because time ran out.”
While Potter and Black’s state titles served as the highlights of the weekend locally, five other Winchester and Frederick County wrestlers reached the championship match in their weight class. James Wood’s Max Mooney (138), Sherando’s Kaden Frock (106) and Lucas Bauer (144) and Handley’s Jace Culotta (126) and Thomas Thorpe (175) all placed second in Virginia Beach. The seven combined state finalists this year are a record for Winchester-Frederick County schools.
Mooney, who ended the season with a 28-3 record, picked up three technical victories in the first three rounds, outscoring opponents 58-12. In the finals, he fell 8-6 to Woodgrove’s Camden Murray. Mooney fell behind 6-2 during a pivotal sequence in the second period where he went for an ankle pick, only for Murray to avoid it and instead secure a takedown.
James Wood head coach Cory Crenshaw said Mooney, a senior, has plenty to be proud of after his Colonels’ career came to a close.
“We knew coming in it was going to be a tough match, a close match,” Crenshaw said. “The big difference maker was [Murray] just got through the early attack. We didn’t get to our attack like we would have liked. That got us behind there to start the first period, and then we’re wrestling from a deficit. Just unfortunately, it didn’t progress for us. He still wrestled a great tournament and had a great career here at James Wood.”
Another senior who ended his career on a strong note was Sherando’s Frock, who picked up two of his three victories in overtime on his way to the final. He defeated Salem’s Sayge Herndon in the semifinals (4-2) after picking up reversal points in the second overtime period of their match. He then fell 19-4 to Blacksburg’s Takoda Parker in the final.
“He had some of the more exciting matches. We were all yelling our guts out there [supporting him],” Sherando head coach Jim Straight said. “If you’re going to overtime with a guy, it’s a 50/50 kind of situation. And he came out ahead on both of those.Hhe found a way to win. He wrestled really well and made it happen for himself.”
Bauer’s path to the final was less stressful, picking up a pinfall win, a 20-4 technical fall win and a 15-3 major decision along the way.
Though he was blanked by Hanover’s Carter Parry 14-0 in the final, Straight said Bauer “rose to the occasion” throughout the tournament. He said he wished the Warriors had been more prepared for Parry’s “unorthodox” style of attacking, which Straight didn’t believe showed up much in his team’s prior meetings with him.
Handley’s Thorpe was another senior who ended his career on a strong note, picking up a pinfall in 45 seconds in round one, tallying a 21-0 tech fall win in the quarterfinals and an 8-2 decision win in the semifinals.
Thorpe, who overcame significant surgeries to his shoulder and knee over the past two seasons, returned to the state final after missing the postseason due to injury last year. He lost to Woodgrove’s Sawyer Jones 10-2 in the title match, marking the second time he finished as the runner-up in the state tournament. Jones tallied four points in the final period.
Thorpe’s teammate, Culotta, also made his return to states after missing last year’s postseason due to illness. Culotta picked up a technical fall win in round one and a pinfall win in the quarterfinals, before defeating Woodgrove’s Adam Skinner 5-2 after recording a takedown in overtime. Culotta had previously lost to Skinner twice in the 2024 state tournament.
In the finals, Culotta struggled to get to his offense during a 9-1 loss to Loudoun County’s Bryce Schnelzer. Handley head coach Troy Mezzatesta said he was “super proud” of both wrestlers’ efforts.
“[Thorpe] stuck to our game plan that we talked about, which was keeping a fast pace to try to win,” Mezzatesta said. “Sawyer hadn’t gone more than a minute with most people he wrestled all year; he went all three periods with us. And our game plan was to push that pace and try to take him into some deep water. I thought Thomas executed and left it all out there.
“For all the work that [Culotta] puts in, to get to the state finals was a huge achievement. To get some redemption against a kid that kind of had his number when he was a little younger, a little less experienced, was just super special. He was really upset [with the loss to Schnelzer], but he’ll be back, because he’s just a hard worker and he’s legit himself.”
In addition to Thorpe and Culotta, Handley’s Alex Sardelis (sixth, 120) and Carson Otto (sixth, 157) also placed on the podium, while Millbrook’s Asa Doyle (fourth, 215) and Alex Stubblefield (sixth, 144) also put forth impressive performances.
Outside of its state finalists, Sherando also saw Carter Straight (third, 150) and Colby Groce (sixth, 138) earn podium placements. James Wood’s Jesse Woodson (third, 175) and Sean Hodel (fifth, 165) also reached the top six.
Crenshaw said his team fulfilled its preseason goal of finishing top five in the state.
“We had a very good year. We weren’t far out of being second this year, as that’s kind of what we were actually starting to look for [later in the season],” Crenshaw said. “We told the boys that we needed to have probably five individuals on the podium to give us that opportunity. We ended up with four. It’s not anything that we did wrong … the brackets didn’t necessarily work out in our favor.”
Crenshaw also said the high-level performance from all four local teams encouraged him for seasons to come in the future.
“I believe all of us had very good showings between all four of our area schools,” Crenshaw said. “That’s just the positivity of the nature that we’ve got going on in our community, and we’re going to hope that stays positive for us all and continues next year.”
— Contact Joe Tuman at jtuman@winchesterstar.com
Follow him on X @jtuman21