Conference 21 West Wrestling

WINCHESTER — A once-dominant wrestling program returned to the top of the heap on Saturday.

In a fiercely contested Conference 21 West tournament in which the top five teams were separated by just 27 points, Millbrook captured its first postseason title since 2012 at Handley’s Maddex-Omps Gymnasium.

Led by individual champions Edwin Ramirez (152 pounds), Kevin Valyear (160), Tavon Blowe (285) and Woodgrove transfer Brandon Bye (126), Millbrook edged Woodgrove with 181 points to the Wolverines’ 175.

The Pioneers won four Northwestern District tournament championships from 2008 to 2012, but the Pioneers did not finish higher than fourth in their four ensuing district/conference tournaments. Millbrook finished fifth in last year’s six-team Conference 21 West tournament, 80 points behind first-place Handley.

“It’s just a building process, and we had to hang in,” said Jeff Holmes, who started as a assistant coach at Millbrook in the 2008-09 season before taking over as head coach in 2012-13. “About four years ago we got a group of kids who were willing to stick together. It was hard work, but they busted their butts, and it’s paid off.

“We have some really solid leadership. Edwin’s a captain who’s been the glue who’s really held the team together, and Kevin, our other captain, has played a big role. We wanted to win the [Northwestern] district, but a conference championship was one of our goals.”

“[The team title] means a lot to me,” said Ramirez, a senior whose last-second 7-5 win helped Millbrook overcome a 171-168 deficit to Woodgrove entering the finals. “Freshman year, we weren’t as good as we were this year.

“We’ve been working hard, the whole team. I’m just proud of all these guys.”

The Pioneers will send at least nine people to the 4A West Region tournament, which will take place this coming Friday and Saturday at Amherst County High School. Only the top three placers in each weight class are guaranteed a spot in the region tournament, but two or three fourth-place finishers from the conference will be selected at random to fill out the 16-wrestler bracket later this week.

James Wood (seven qualifiers, individual champs Aaron Black at 120 pounds and Bailey Eichelberger at 170) took third with 171 points, Handley (eight qualifiers, individual champs Mac Gordon at 113, Web Bentley at 132, Cam Bentley at 138 and Jimmy Vitola at 182), took fourth with 165, Sherando (seven qualifiers, individual champ John Borst at 195) took fifth with 154 and Harrisonburg was sixth with 66.

Millbrook placed six wrestlers in the championship finals, and a newcomer to the team helped the Pioneers get off to an electrifying start.

The 126-pound final featured Bye (39-12), a senior who had never started before this year and was participating in his first postseason tournament in high school, against his former Woodgrove teammate Derek Shockey (39-3), a junior who placed sixth at the Group 4A state tournament at 120 pounds last year. Shockey defeated Bye 8-6 at the Get the Bell Rung tournament at Woodgrove on Jan. 21.

On Saturday, Shockey recorded a quick takedown to take a 2-0 lead, then Bye recorded an escape. With about 40 seconds to go in the first period, Bye dropped Shockey on his back and wrapped him in a headlock. Shockey fought desperately and made Bye shift his feet to hold his grip, but with 11 seconds left in the period the ref slammed his hand to the mat for a Bye pin that set off a wild Millbrook celebration.

“I had him in a headlock, so I knew I just had to keep squeezing and keep holding him in position,” Bye said.

Bye said he wrestled at 132 pounds last year, and feels the move to 126 has benefited him.

“I’m a lot stronger,” Bye said. “It feels good to wrestle for Millbrook, and win a conference championship.”

Holmes said he was definitely happy for Bye.

“That win was huge,” Holmes said. “[Bye] came here to Millbrook and got an opportunity to go to a weight he’s comfortable with, and he beat one of his former teammates who’s a pretty darn good kid. That’s a testament to the hard work [Bye] has put in.”

Ramirez (41-11) was the next Millbrook wrestler to take the mat, and his two takedowns in the last 51 seconds helped him earn a dramatic victory over James Wood senior Matt Papastavrou.

The first Ramirez takedown gave him a 5-4 lead, but during a stoppage eight seconds later Millbrook elected to concede an escape point to Papastavrou, tying the match at 5-5.

With the clock winding down, Ramirez then got his left arm underneath Papastavrou’s right arm for a takedown about a second before the final buzzer.

“I just used an inside trip,” said Ramirez, who won the first conference title of his career. “I’ve been working hard in practice, and I just did what my coach told me to do. It meant a lot to help the team.”

Holmes said Ramirez used his strengths to win.

“When Edwin pushes the pace, he wins his matches,” Holmes said. “Where we need him to win is on his feet. When he’s clicking and he’s confident, he scores a lot of takedowns.”

Valyear (40-4) followed Ramirez with his win at 160. Valyear’s finals victory didn’t have the drama of Bye’s or Ramirez’s matches, but it was noteworthy for its dominance and importance.

Valyear led 5-0 after one period and went on to an 11-2 win over Woodgrove’s Joe Candelaria (23-8) to end any hopes that Woodgrove had of winning the team title. At the end of the tournament, Sherando coach Pepper Martin made a point of praising Valyear’s performance while talking to Valyear’s father.

“Kevin’s a competitor,” said Holmes of the wrestler who dropped down from 170 in the middle of the season. “You can put him anywhere, and he’s going do the best he can, he’s going to wrestle the style you want him to wrestle, and he’s going to do the things you want him to do.”

Blowe’s match was the least dramatic of all the finals matches, as James Wood elected not to send out Dawson Ray because the Colonels did not want him to aggravate an injury suffered in practice prior to the tournament. Holmes said the 50-7 junior is a deserving champion though.

“He’s been winning in dominant fashion,” Holmes said. “We’re very happy with him.”

Other wrestlers that Millbrook will send to the regional tournament are second-place finishers Xever Lemieux (170) and Gabe Neaverth (182) and third-place finishers Jonathan Ochoa (113), Lukas Guerrero (138) and Daniel VanAmburg (145).

With the score tied 3-3. the perfect season of James Wood senior Aaron Black (27-0) was in question entering the third period of the 120-pound finals.

Black hadn’t wrestled a match in more than two weeks because of an injury suffered at the Loudoun Valley two weeks ago and a bout with bronchitis last weekend. Already not breathing at 100 percent because he’s still recovering from the bronchitis, Black’s nose had to be plugged in the second period because of a nose bleed.

Black started from the bottom position in the third, but he was able to push himself enough to generate multiple stalling calls against Tardiff, and Black received a point with 42 seconds left as a result. Tardiff then cut Black loose for an escape to make it 5-3. Black wrapped up Tardiff in the closing seconds and held on for the win.

“Instead of me wrestling how I usually do, keeping the pressure on, I had to wrestle smart because I was sick,” Black said.

Eichelberger (34-5) also had to dig deep to win in the finals.

With the score tied 1-1, Eichelberger grabbed Lemieux’s right leg and dropped him for a takedown, and he went on to deal Lemieux just his third defeat of the year in a 3-2 victory. Lemieux beat Eichelberger 3-0 in a dual at Millbrook earlier this season.

“A senior coming through like that is big,” James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw said. “We’ve been trying to get [Eichelberger] not to tie up, and he got out of that tie and got into that single nice and deep and finish. He worked up the back to get that two, and if he hadn’t done that, he probably wouldn’t have got it.”

In addition to Black, Eichelberger, Papastavrou and Ray, James Wood will send Joshua Arce (second at 113 pounds) and third-place finishers Corey Lemons (126) and Jared King to regionals.

“Dawson is a first-year wrestler, so for him to do what he’s done this year is a big step for him,” Crenshaw said. “I was only thinking we’d take five to regionals, so to take at least seven is great. Team-wise, we wrestled very well, because we were thinking we might only get fourth or fifth coming in, The guys really stepped it up today.”

Handley senior Cam Bentley (33-6) earned his 100th career win en route to winning the 138-pound title last year at the conference tournament, and he picked up his 100th career pin in the 138 final this year. Bentley pinned Sherando’s Jacob Stevens (55-3) in 3:37 for his second win in two meetings with Stevens this year.

Bentley - who beat Stevens 4-2 in the Walters/Copp semifinals at James Wood in December - reversed Stevens with 33 seconds left in the second period to go up 4-0, then popped off the mat and roared after earning the pin 10 seconds later.

Bentley said he wanted to be stronger in neutral than he was in the first match against Stevens, and Bentley did that by recording a first-period takedown. As good as he is at pinning his foes though, he wasn’t necessarily expecting that.

“The main key was just keeping my hips steady,” Bentley said. “It’s a great feeling to win four conference championships, and get my 100th pin at home. Those are two major achievements in my life.”

Handley coach David Scott noted that each of his four championship wrestlers recorded the first takedowns in their respective matches. Mac Gordon (35-8) beat Arce 6-2 in the 113 final, Cam’s younger brother Web (37-8) beat Sherando’s Jackson Bryant 4-0 in the 138 final, and senior Jimmy Vitola (33-9) beat Neaverth 5-4 in the 182 final, earning the winning point on an escape with 12 seconds left.

“Mac wrestled great,” Scott said. “He stuck to the game plan and controlled the wrists. When Cam gets the first takedown, he can usually ride [his opponent out]], and that gave us an advantage to choose bottom in the second, which was huge. Web did a great job as well.”

Scott was definitely pleased for Vitola, who lost to Neaverth 7-2 in a dual match earlier this year and earned his first conference title.

“Him being able to score from neutral was key, and then the duck under [for the escape] at the end was sweet,” Scott said.

The Judges will take eight total wrestlers to regionals, with John Delaney (who lost 9-8 in the 145-pound final to Harrisonburg’s Jacob Urbanksi) and third-place finishers Jensen Lofton (152), Casey Marchant (160) and Tyler Heglas (170) joining their four champions.

For Northwestern District champion Sherando, it was a disappointing result.

Borst (55-1) - ranked as the top pound-for-pound wrestler in Virginia - had a typically dominant performance with a 27-second semifinal pin and a 24-second finals pin of Harrisonburg’s Fahad Mohammed.

The Warriors were hurt by some injuries - 182-pounder Zach McCarty suffered one on Tuesday and didn’t suit up Saturday, and Mikeal Neff (160) and Jose Guevara (285) were hurt Saturday. But overall, Martin said Sherando didn’t wrestle its best.

“We thought we had a good preparatory week of practice,“ Martin said. “We drilled hard and fast, didn’t keep them in the room two hours, we corrected some mistakes that we’d been making individually, and we fine-tuned some things.

“We knew coming in that five of the six teams could win this with a good day. With the way it turned out, we were one of the teams that did not, collectively, as a team have a good day.”

Sherando will send seven wrestlers to regionals: Borst, Bryant, Stevens, Zack Kales (lost by fall to Woodgrove’s Zach Stanley in 220 final in 1:06 to take second) and third-place finishers Zane Hawkins (106), Timmy Dieter (120) and Guevara.

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