Wood's Black cap senior year with 4A state wrestling title

By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI | The Winchester Star

SALEM — The Sherando High School wrestling room is a safe place where you can make verbal jabs at senior 195-pounder John Borst, ranked as the No. 1 pound-for-pound wrestler in the state by the Virginia Wrestling Association.

A wrestling mat at any other location? Well, at least the terror didn’t last too long for opponents this postseason.

Borst became the first wrestler in history to win three state titles at a Frederick County school at the Group 4A state tournament on Saturday at the Salem Civic Center, and he did so by pinning every single one of his nine postseason opponents in the first period.

The last one to fall was King’s Fork’s Dennis Whitehead, whom Borst pinned in 1 minute and 50 seconds in Saturday’s final to become the second Frederick County wrestler to win a state title on Saturday. James Wood senior Aaron Black won the second state title of his career by beating Fauquier’s Kyle Budd 2-1 in the 120-pound final, overcoming a 1-0 deficit on a reversal with 26 seconds left.

Borst injured his knee in practice on Feb. 2, two days before the postseason began with the Conference 21 West tournament on Feb. 4.

But Borst — who improved to 62-1 with 44 pins this season and 211-18 with 164 pins for his career — never gave any sign that the knee was an issue while running roughshod over his opponents.

“It was fun,” said Borst, who will receive a partial scholarship to wrestle at NCAA Division I Virginia Tech next year. “When I was a little kid I saw [former Millbrook and Virginia Tech wrestler] Derrick Borlie pin his way through the state tournament [in 2009], so that was the goal coming in, and I made sure it happened. I’m pretty proud of it.”

In the team standings, Great Bridge took first with 130 points to unseat two-time defending state champion Fauquier (second with 123.5). Millbrook (four state-placers) was eighth with 57 points, Sherando (two) was ninth with 55, James Wood (two) tied for 17th with 36 and Handley (two) was 19th with 27.

Borst led 7-1 at the time of his pin of Whitehead as a result of two takedowns and three near-fall points. The first points came on a double-leg takedown 34 seconds into the match.

“As soon as I took [Whitehead] down, I was like, ‘I can now start to go to work,’” Borst said. “Once I got on top, it was just, ‘Find a way to pin him.’

“I hadn’t wrestled him before, so I didn’t really have a game plan coming in. No one knows they’re going to win a match truly until it happens, but I wasn’t going to lose.”

Borst said his injury wasn’t too bothersome, but he’s going to have an MRI on his knee this week. Borst said he tried to wrestle in a way that would prevent his opponents from contacting it too much, but apparently there hasn’t been much Borst could do to prevent verbal shots aimed his way from his team.

“I get made of fun of a lot for being a wimp on the team,” said Borst, who had to fight through a severe illness in becoming the first wrestler in area history to win at the Beast of the East in Newark, Del., in December. “I’m like the biggest wimp on the team. I get called that all the time.

“It just comes with the whole game. I’m not saying I didn’t cry [when I got hurt].”

Borst made the “wimp” comments with a smile on his face. It was Sherando coach Pepper Martin who first brought the injury up a few minutes earlier, adding that it should only be made public if Borst was OK with talking about it.

The level of respect that Martin — the only wrestling coach in Sherando’s 24-year history — has for Borst is immense to say the least.

Borst also won state titles at 170 pounds as a sophomore and 182 pounds as a junior. Former Millbrook and North Carolina wrestler Jake Crawford also won three state titles in high school, but one of those came in his sophomore year at Robinson.

“In my coaching career, he’s been a once-in-a-lifetime wrestler,” Martin said. “As a coach to be able to ride his coattails to three state championships, it’s an indescribable feeling.

“He was firing on all cylinders in the postseason. When he gave up points in the postseason, it was so he could essentially get in a position where he could take the wrestler down again. His postseason was about as dominating as you can get.”

Of the five wrestlers Sherando brought to the state tournament, Warriors sophomore Timmy Dieter (55-13) was the only other wrestler to earn all-state honors (top six). Dieter placed fourth at 120 pounds.

“He had a really nice tournament,” Martin said. “This is definitely something he can build on. I know it’s made him hungrier, and we don’t have to worry about him doing what it takes in the offseason to get prepared for next year. We just hope that some of the other wrestlers we have follow suit.”

The person Dieter lost to in the semifinals on Friday was Fauquier’s Budd. A year ago, Budd won the 113-pound state title by beating James Wood’s Black 7-4 in the state final, this after Black beat Budd in the 4A West Region final one week earlier.

A week ago, Budd (41-9) beat Black 1-0 in the 4A West Region final on a second-period escape, so Black (33-1 this year, 181-13 for his career) was looking to do what Budd did to him last year by avenging his regional final loss with a state final win.

For more than five minutes, the match played out the same as last week in terms of scoring — Budd’s second period escape was the only point.

But with 38 seconds left in the match, Black began to free himself with a switch, and over the next 12 seconds he moved his body in a circle until he was finally able to get on top of Budd’s back for a reversal and a 2-1 lead.

Black felt being more aggressive than he was in the last meeting with Budd, and moving more than he did in that last meeting, paid off. By making Budd work harder than he did last week, Black seemed to make it more difficult for Budd to control him in the third period this week.

“I was getting tired,” Black said. “But I knew it was my last shot, senior year, last match of the year. I had my mind-set that I couldn’t stop wrestling, and I kept wrestling.

“I hit a switch, and I got my arm in like a lever. I got my hips out, and I was able to get behind him and get two.”

Black would later slam Budd to the mat with 10 seconds left when he tried to get up, drawing an impressed reaction from the crowd. Black then controlled Budd for the rest of the match, and Black pumped his fist as he made his way to the ref to have his hand raised.

“It was pretty cool to win this,” said Black, the state champion at 106 pounds as a freshman. “[Budd’s] a great kid and has a great attitude. In every single one of our matches against each other, we both showed good sportsmanship. I really wanted this and worked really hard last week.

“Winning was all that was on my mind, and fortunately I did it.”

Black gave a lot of credit to first-year head coach Cory Crenshaw for helping him improve his conditioning this year and giving him some different insight.

Crenshaw said he couldn’t be prouder of Black.

“We were better off our feet than last week,” Crenshaw said. “He almost had a takedown late in the first. Aaron hasn’t wrestled six minutes very often this year, but when we work on conditioning in the room, it pays off late. He really pushed through and fought to the end.

“He’s third on the career wins list at James Wood. He’s a four-time state finalist, which is something to be proud of in itself, but to be a two-time state champion just adds to his reputation as a great wrestler.”

Senior Bailey Eichelberger (44-10) placed fifth at 170 pounds for the Colonels in his first VHSL state tournament appearance.

“We thought Bailey could take third or fourth,” said Crenshaw of Eichelberger, who lost 2-1 in the consolation semifinals Saturday to Bassett‘s Demontay Wimbush but beat Kettle Run‘s Kasen Chumley 7-3 in the fifth-place match. “All in all, it was a great season for him.”

Millbrook also had a state finalist in junior Tavon Blowe (56-9) but he lost 4-2 in the 285-pound final to defending state champion Elijah Boldin (30-3) of John Champe. Boldin beat Blowe 5-0 in the 4A West Region final last week.

Their match was scoreless heading into the third period this week. Boldin got an escape and a takedown within the first 32 seconds of the third to go up 3-0, but Blowe put a charge into the match with a reversal with 45 seconds left. Blowe wound up cutting Boldin for an escape 15 seconds later in hopes of tying the match with a takedown, but Boldin held him off.

The disappointment in Blowe’s face was visible long after his loss. After pinning Louisa County’s Tony Thurston by fall in 5:03 in Friday’s semifinals in what Millbrook coach Jeff Holmes termed the best match he’s seen Blowe wrestle, Blowe and Holmes saw no reason why they couldn’t avenge last week’s loss to Boldin.

“[In the semifinals], it was my offense,” Blowe said. “I was always on the move. He couldn’t hold me down on bottom.

“In the finals match, I just didn’t do what we practiced. I didn’t get off bottom when he held me down. I didn’t put it all together until the third period, and it was too late by then.”

Blowe — who went just 18-14 last year —said he’s looking forward to doing the work he needs to win a state title next year.

The other wrestlers who placed for Millbrook were senior Kevin Valyear (50-9, fourth at 160 pounds), senior Brandon Bye (43-20, sixth at 126) and senior Gabe Neaverth (56-15, sixth at 182).

Holmes said he was pleased with his senior class, which also featured 152-pounder Edwin Ramirez among its state qualifiers.

“These kids, they mean a lot to me,” Holmes said. “The seniors in particular. They’re great, solid kids. They’ve worked hard the last four years and really brought the whole rest of the team together. They’re great leaders, and I can’t say enough great things about them.”

For Handley, senior Cam Bentley (44-11, fourth at 138) and freshman Mac Gordon (45-12, fifth at 113) each placed.

“We were happy with Mac and Cam,” Judges coach David Scott said. “Mac got the experience of being down here, and Cam improved on his fifth-place from last year. We thought Jimmy [Vitola] could place [at 182 pounds], so that was disappointing.

“We’ll miss Cam and Jimmy. For Jimmy to be here was really impressive because he didn’t get out of the conference last year. He scored a ton of points this year and was in the finals of every tournament except here and at Hagerstown. And Cam, the total amount of points he scored is unreal. That’s a big loss, both of those guys.”

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