Walters-Copp Invitational

Posted: December 24, 2015
By JOSH DORSEY
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Sherando’s John Borst won Most Outstanding Wrestler for the second straight year at the Willie Walters/Jaye Copp Holiday Invitational on Wednesday night at James Wood, this time as the huge favorite in the 182-pound weight class.

Borst easily defended his crown by pinning all four of his opponents over two days, including James Wood’s Bailey Eichelberger in the second period of the finals.

In the team competition, Patrick Henry (200 points) edged Hanley (192) for the crown. Sherando (163.5) took third, while James Wood (117) was fifth and Clarke County (99) took seventh.

Eichelberger was the lone wrestler to last more than one period against Borst, who won the Group 4A state title at 170 pounds last season. Borst had pinned his first three opponents in a total time of 2:06 before winning in 2:48 in the final.

“Live life as the hunter and not the hunted, that’s how you have to live life,” Borst said of his strategy. “I learned that from my freshman to sophomore year. You have to train like you are in second but act like you are in first. That’s just how it is.”

Borst knocked off wrestlers from Handley and Wood on the way to the title.

“It’s always special to win this tournament because they are kind of our cross-county rivals but you have teams from all over the state that come up,” said Borst, who improved to 24-2 on the season. “You see everyone really. These tournaments are huge because you can’t predict the end and it’s not how you start it’s how you finish. It’s a grind for two days and it’s good to get that mental attitude early in the season.”

Borst is returning from a larger scale Beast of the East tournament, where he suffered both of his losses. He fell to the tournament champion and third-place finisher.

“He [Borst] understands that this year every time he goes out there somebody wants to wrestle their best and try and beat a returning state champion,” Sherando coach Pepper Martin said. “It’s the same thing with Lio Quezada from Handley and Aaron Black from James Wood or any of the other local state champions. You can’t take any opponent for granted and respect all your opponents and what they can bring to the wrestling mat.

“He needed to go to a tournament like The Beast of the East to help him prepare for now and later on in the season and the postseason because his ultimate goal is to repeat as state champion and to do that he’s going to have to be put in some tough match situations.”

The Warriors were missing some usual starters in the event, coming off the Beast of the East and Turner Ashby Invitational.

“This is our second bracket tournament in two weeks and you really need those,” Martin said. “It gives an opportunity to gauge where you are as a tournament team. We’ve been doing well as a dual team but we have some adjustments to make as a tournament team if we want to challenge in the postseason as a team.”

Handley pushed Patrick Henry to the end in the team race. Quezada took a 10-2 major decision over Sherando’s Jacob Stevens at 132 and Dolan Delaney won a tight 2-0 decision over Liberty’s Cameron Yates.

“I wanted to get the pin badly,” Quezada said of his triumph. “I wanted to do it for my team, I was wrestling for them because we are in a tight spot with the team race so I was wrestling for something bigger than myself. It feels good representing my school and in front of all my family and friends who are so close to here to come out and support it. It feels really good, I’m just happy I wrestled well.”

Delaney found a way to win.

“I’m always confident in myself. I work real hard and I know what I can accomplish but I didn’t take anything lightly,” Delaney said. “In the first period, it was 0-0. He had a really strong base and I couldn’t open him up much. In the second period, we got a stall call so I knew I had that in my favor. I finally got an escape and I just had to ride him out. At that point I felt real confident that I could finish him out.”

Handley coach David Scott was satisfied with his team’s performance.

“We’re happy. We would have liked to have won it,” Scott said. “That’s the goal every time. But getting two champions is awesome.

“Going into the finals we knew we really didn’t have much of a chance with [Patrick Henry] having three [finalists]. It’s nice to finish ahead of the other area schools but there were some kids out. We know it’s going to be a lot different when conference and districts come around.”

Clarke County also crowned a pair of champions Wednesday, both defending Group 2A state champs.

Bayne Gordon won a 15-3 major decision at 126 over Sherando’s Mike Duffy and Bryan Wallace took at 3-1 decision against Orange County High School’s Dustin Shifflett at 195.

Gordon, 22-1 this season, improved over his finish a year ago.

“Every match was either a pin or a tech fall so I was on top of my game today, but it was a tough weight class,” Gordon said. “Mike Duffy is having a pretty good year this year so I knew it was going to be a good match. I got third here last year so it was good to get a win this year.”

Wallace, fresh off Clarke County’s football run to the state title game, improved to 13-0. Shifflett had pinned all three of his opponents before the title match.

“We did all right. ... I have a lot of young faces,” Clarke County coach Jon VanSice said. “We’ve had some injuries on our team here lately in the past week. We’ve had to make some adjustments to our squad so we wrestled some newer faces here today and they did all right. I’m happy with how we did to be in a tournament of this caliber and come out with two champions.”

Host James Wood also has been dealing with injuries, which forced the Colonels to enter just 11 of the weight classes. They did not have a champion, but Josh Arce (106), Matt Papastavrou (138) and Eichelbeger each had runner-up finishes.

“We did a good job to finish fifth,” James Wood coach Greg Walker said. “The injuries just keep coming but the kids wrestled hard. I think some of these younger kids are seeing that the hard work pays off.

“We had three in the finals and they wrestled three of the better kids in the whole tournament,” Walker added. “.... When we come back over break hopefully we will have everyone in the room and we’ll be able to get after it.”