Regional Wrestling Tournament

Posted: February 16, 2015
By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

AMHERST — There was no score when the 4A North Region wrestling tournament 285-pound title match went to a stoppage with 31 seconds left in the third period Saturday at Amherst County High School, but the odds seemed pretty stacked against Sherando junior Ben Avery at that juncture.

Struggling with his breathing, Avery took an injury timeout. Given that Avery has a rough history with asthma (he had to default his last two matches at the Willie Walters/Jaye Copp Invitational at James Wood on Dec. 30 because of a bad attack), the fact that the opposing wrestler (Dominion’s Adeeb Atariwa) had handed Avery half of his four losses this year, and that Avery was in the top position and couldn’t afford to let up, all signs screamed to Atariwa eventually wearing Avery down and picking up the win.

But thanks to his recent conditioning training, Avery’s not the same wrestler he was back in December, and his will and skill took care of the rest.

Avery rode out Atariwa to force overtime, then recorded a takedown nine seconds into the extra session to win his first career regional title. Avery’s win capped a tournament in which four local wrestlers won regional titles — sophomore teammate John Borst (170 pounds) won the first of his career, Handley junior Lio Quezada (126) won his second, and Millbrook senior Dylan Wisman (182) capped a perfect regional career by winning his fourth.

Twelve local wrestlers qualified for the state tournament, which will take place this coming Friday and Saturday at the Salem Civic Center.

Fauquier dominated the team competition with 234.5 points, nearly 100 more than Eastern View (136.5). Sherando (four state qualifiers) placed sixth with 114 points. James Wood (three) was seventh with 94.5, Handley (three) was eighth with 89 and Millbrook (two) was 11th with 73 points out of 28 scoring teams.

With sweat pouring down his face, Avery (34-4 record) said an improved mind-set played a big role in his win Saturday against Atariwa (43-5), who pinned Avery two weeks ago in overtime of the Conference 21 duals and beat him 2-1 in the Conference 21 final last week.

Avery has a strong religious faith, and he relied on that to trust in himself more than he did two weeks ago.

“Going into the [Conference 21 duals against Atariwa], I was like, ‘He’s ranked higher than me, so I might lose. I don’t know what’s going to happen,’” Avery said. “Being able to wrestle him a few times, getting a feel for him, I walked into this match thinking, ‘What’s going to happen is what’s going to happen. I’m going to wrestle with my heart and wrestle my hardest and see what happens.’ ”

Still, it’s hard to wrestle your hardest when you can’t breathe. Avery and Sherando coach Pepper Martin said Avery has been doing a lot of running and conditioning work recently to get his asthma under control, but there are still times where it can affect him.

Avery refused to let his breathing get the better of him Saturday though. After a respite, Avery steeled himself and prevented Atariwa from getting an escape for the last 31 seconds of the third period, though Atariwa came close by getting up on his feet once.

In overtime, Atariwa went for a low shot almost immediately. Avery said he was surprised by that, but obviously he wasn’t so surprised that he wasn’t ready.

“I sprawled back, got my hips back, because that was what I knew I needed to do,” Avery said. “I saw the opportunity, blocked his head and hands and spun around him. He stood right up. I heard Coach Martin say, ‘Just return him, just return him.’ I lifted him up, set him to his knees and I got two.

“This is a big win and big confidence boost for me.”

After Avery got the takedown, Martin had a huge smile on his face and clapped enthusiastically.

“Ben’s been so close on a couple occasions with the Dominion kid, and this time he found a way to pull it out,” Martin said. “He did a nice job of being able to get in position to get that takedown. We’re extremely happy for him and proud of him for what he did, because he beat three pretty darn good heavyweights down here.”

The area pin leader Borst (54-2 with 47 pins) pinned his way through the entire tournament and capped if off with a win by fall in 2:00 against Amherst’s Dylan Dawson (37-4), a wrestler he also pinned in December. Borst said Dawson had been using the same move — an inside trip to a double takedown — to beat his opponents throughout the tournament, and noted that Dawson had pulled that off against Borst in their earlier match.

“I promised myself I wasn’t going to get hit with that this time,” Borst said. “As soon as I started tying up hands and got in my offense, he had no chance. On top, it’s just bars and halfs every single day. That’s all I’ve worked on, that’s all I’ve done. I strive and excel at it, and that’s what I got the job done with.”

Avery and Borst will be joined in the state tournament for Sherando by freshman Jeremiah Platts (17-3), who took fourth at 106 pounds, and junior Curtis Guthridge (49-11), who took fourth at 126 (the top four wrestlers in each weight class advance to the state tournament).

However, Martin was hoping to at least get senior Colton Simmons through to states as well, but Simmons wound up taking sixth at 138.

“I know how happy he was with his conference title last week, and how much it meant to him to get to the state tournament,” Martin said. “He had some tough matches, and had the lead in the one that eliminated him.

“He’s been a four-year starter and meant a lot to our program. He’s an excellent wrestler and an even better young man. If there was one thing I could change from this weekend, [getting Simmons to states] would definitely be it.”

James Wood’s three state qualifiers are sophomore Aaron Black (third at 113 pounds, 47-5), senior Jimmy Woznak (third at 152, 50-9) and sophomore Matt Artrup (fourth at 120, 39-15).

Black — who won the state title at 106 pounds last year — lost the first postseason match of his career to eventual 113 champion Ty Foster of Fauquier in the semifinals by a 10-6 score.

‘The kid scored on him, and he got nervous,” said Walker of Black, who led 4-2 at one point before a takedown and back points put him in a hole. “He just changed his style completely, and you can’t do that. You’ve got to stay comfortable and collected and keep plugging along. But he just got caught, and when you’re down five points it’s tough to come back, especially at this level. But I think we can beat that kid next time.”

Walker also thought the Colonels would at least bring 182-pounder Hunter Bentley to states as well, but Bentley wound up taking fifth. Bentley beat the wrestler who finished second at 182 Saturday — Woodgrove’s Kyle Branch — in last week’s Conference 21 semifinals. He could have faced Branch in the 4A North semifinals, but he lost to Fluvanna County’s Donnie Wilson 9-8 in Friday’s quarterfinals. Bentley wound up pinning Wilson in 41 seconds in the fifth-place match.

“He just didn’t wrestle smart yesterday in that one match,” Walker said. “He just had a tough draw, and once you lose, it gets really hard. But we had five out of our eight kids place in the top six, so you can’t complain. They wrestled hard.”

Handley’s Quezada (39-4) earned one of the more dramatic wins of the tournament by beating Woodgrove’s Dylan Shockey (51-5) 5-4 on a takedown with 12 seconds left.

Quezada defeated Shockey 7-3 a month ago at the Judges Invitational, and in taking a 4-2 lead through two periods Saturday, it was obvious to Quezada that Shockey had done his homework since then.

“He was countering on what I was scoring on the last time we wrestled,” Quezada said. “Last time I was going inside and throwing it up for a double-leg, but every time I tried to hit that he was defending it.”

Shockey conceded an escape point to make it 4-3 at the start of the third period.

With time running down in the third, Quezada figured Shockey wouldn’t be too aggressive, so he put one of his legs in a position to entice Shockey to take a shot.

“As soon as he shot in, I grabbed his ankle and hip and just pulled it through, got my hips up, and ended up on top,” said Quezada of a sequence in which the two wrestlers came together before rolling onto the mat.

Quezada — a state champion at 120 pounds last year — will have a tough task at the state tournament. J.D. Gregory of Hanover, a two-time state champion who has committed to wrestle for West Virginia, could be one of his opponents.

But as Saturday showed, Quezada can never be counted out of any situation.

“He always keeps fighting, keeps grinding, and keeps going, and things open up when you do that,” said Handley assistant coach Nick Sardelis. “He was there and in good position, and he was able to score off that position, hold on and win it.”

Despite coming into Saturday with just one loss, Handley 220-pound junior Tommy Shea-Roop (47-3) was not able to join Quezada at the top of podium.

In the semifinals, Shea-Roop lost to E.C. Glass’s Jared Bartell 5-2 in a match that Sardelis felt “should have been a finals match” had the brackets been set up differently. Sardelis said Shea-Roop wrestled well, but some stalling calls helped shape the outcome of the match. (Handley coach David Scott left the tournament early, though Sardelis did not specify why, and Scott could not be reached for comment. Shea-Roop also forfeited his third-place match after winning his consolation semifinal, which put him in fourth. Sardelis didn’t say why Shea-Roop forfeited, but he did say that Shea-Roop is not injured.)

Also qualifying from the state tournament for Handley is junior Harrison Robinson (33-20), who took fourth at 145.

Millbrook’s Wisman (43-4) continued his decorated career by pinning all four of his opponents in the first period, including Woodgrove’s Branch (43-11) in 1:28 in the final.

The one-time state champion, two-time national champion, Fargo All-American and future University of Missouri wrestler will now just try and finish his high school career in style after finishing with a perfect career record in regional tournament action.

“I’m wrestling good,” Wisman said. “I’m just going out there and just letting it all hang out there on the mat, not holding anything back.”

Millbrook’s only other state qualifier will be Wisman’s fellow senior Ryan Meushaw (second at 120 pounds, (31-4). Meushaw had a huge 3-1 win in the semifinals over Fauquier’s Daniel Ariola — Ariola beat Meushaw in the Group 4A state and 4A North Region finals last year — but a Meushaw takedown with 20 seconds left wasn’t enough to overtake Jefferson Forest’s Blake Justis (42-4) in the finals. Justis won 3-2.

“He had real good focus in the match against Ariola,” Millbrook coach Jeff Holmes said. “He had a good hand fight, he was aggressive on his feet. [In the final], I think he was holding back a little bit, and I’m not really sure why. But he’s got an opportunity next week [to win the state title], and that’s what we’ve got to set our sights on at this point.”

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