Region 4C Wrestling

By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI | The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — James Wood senior Aaron Curd doesn’t think of himself as someone who gets many pins, but he’s sure picking the right times to get them.

Curd — tied for 20th in the area with 15 falls coming into Friday night — won his second straight postseason tournament championship match with a pin to win the 152-pound championship at the Region 4C tournament at Sherando High School.

Trailing 1-0 entering the third period, Curd wrapped his arms around Heritage’s Beau Hogan’s back with 40 seconds left, dropped him to the mat and was awarded the pin with 26 seconds left.

“It’s one of my favorite moves,” said Curd of the bear hug. “To win with it, that’s kind of cool.

“I don’t pin that many kids. I usually end up riding out the match. To finish with a pin is great. I’m very happy.”

Curd was one of three Winchester-Frederick County weight class champions at last week’s Class 4 Northwestern District tournament at Liberty, and the same three wrestlers were the only locals to win championships on Friday night.

Like Curd, Handley junior Web Bentley will also head to the first state tournament of his career as a result of winning a regional championship. Bentley won the 138-pound final with a 7-2 win over Liberty’s Bryan Contreras.

Finally, Millbrook senior Tavon Blowe made another statement in his mission to win a state title at 285 pounds after taking second last year.

Blowe pinned Liberty’s Julian Sams — last year’s Class 4 third-place finisher — in 3:27, the second straight week that Blowe has pinned Sams in a postseason tournament championship.

Those three headlined a group of 15 local state qualifiers. All wrestlers who finished in the top four of their weight class advanced to the Class 4 state tournament, which will take place Feb. 16-17 at Churchland High School in Portsmouth.

Though Contreras and Sams were unable to win their weight classes, Liberty still had enough to avenge last week’s loss to Fauquier at the district tournament. The Eagles scored 204 points while the Falcons took second with 199.5.

James Wood (five state qualifiers) placed third with 139 points, Millbrook (four state qualifiers) was sixth with 84 points, Sherando (five state qualifiers) was eighth with 74 points, and Handley (one state qualifier) was 11th with 32 points out of 14 scoring teams.

The only point scored in Curd’s match came three seconds into the second period on an escape by Hogan. Curd started the third period in the down position.

“I knew I needed at least one [point] if I wanted to win,” Curd said. “I wanted a reversal so I could be up. Once I started getting to my feet, I didn’t want to just get to my feet, so I turned in and tried for that bear hug.

“It means a lot to win. Stuff is starting to make a lot more sense this year, and I think it has to do with me being more aggressive and wanting it more and more.”

James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw said opponents have to be prepared to give everything they have when wrestling Curd (30-4 record).

“He plans to go into the military when he’s out of school,” Crenshaw said. “His mentality, his focus is what keeps him driving. That was a pretty tough match. I actually thought we were going to get outmuscled a little bit. But we dug in a couple of underhooks, got that bear hug nice and tight and sucked the air out of him.”

James Wood — which had 12 regional qualifiers — will also send Luke Roy (second at 195 pounds) Josh Arce (third at 120), Joey Vitola (third at 138) and Vince Caruso (fourth at 113) to the state tournament. Roy lost for the second straight week in a postseason final to Liberty’s Justin Cannon, who won by fall in 3:28.

“We were hoping to get a couple more through than five, but it’s still a good day for us,” Crenshaw said.

Millbrook’s Blowe (47-1) pinned all three of his opponents for the second straight week. Blowe pinned Sams in the first period last week, but neither wrestler could score in the first period this week.

“[Sams] definitely came with better defense than he did the first time,” Blowe said. “He defended my shots pretty good.”

But in the second period, Blowe — who was conceded an escape point at the start — was able to grab one of Sams’ legs near the edge of the circle and shift him onto his back.

“He kind of put himself out of position, and I capitalized on it,” Blowe said. “We do that a lot in practice — underhooks, then dropping to a single [leg] and finishing it, and putting a half [Nelson] in right off that. That’s something I knew I had to do.

“I definitely have more confidence, beating him twice. But I know he’s going to come hard at states. It’s not going to be easy. I’m hoping I get to wrestle him again to prove I’m a better wrestler.”

Millbrook coach Jeff Holmes said it was a great finish for Blowe.

“Beating a good kid twice is a tall task, especially a kid of that caliber,” Holmes said. “He went out there with a plan and executed his plan.”

Millbrook had eight regional qualifiers. Heading to the state tournament are Jonathan Ochoa (second at 113), Lukas Guerrero (fourth at 138) and Daniel VanAmberg (fourth at 145). Ochoa lost to Liberty’s Daniel Sennot 15-2 in the 113 title match. Sennott beat Ochoa 9-1 in the Class 4 Northwestern District final.

Sherando had seven regional participants (Quinn McPartland was an injury replacement for Handley’s Ethan Bishop at 152), so all but two will go to the state tournament. Those advancing are Timmy Dieter (second at 132), Zack Kales (second at 220), Heath Rudolph (third at 126), Tucker Anderson (fourth at 160) and Zach McCarty (fourth at 182).

Dieter and Kales each lost in rematches of the district finals against Fauquier wrestlers.

Dieter was pinned in 1:56 after briefly grabbing Kyle Budd’s leg, only to have Budd scramble, cradle Dieter’s head and get a pin.

Earlier, Dieter caught a bad break after putting himself in a controlling position of Budd with 51 seconds left. Six seconds earlier, the refs had awarded a takedown to Budd, but it was later determined that Budd should not have been given the takedown during a discussion between the coaches and the refs. The end result was the two points scored by both wrestlers were nullified, making the score 0-0.

Kales lost 5-1 to Tyler Raymond after losing to him 3-2 last week.

“It was nice to have us come into regionals and wrestle to our potential,” said Sherando coach Pepper Martin, whose team went a disappointing 3-6 in the consolation semis at districts. “We think pretty much everybody finished about as high as they could have. We wrestled smart and we wrestled hard.”

Handley’s Bentley finished one win away from qualifying for states last year, so to qualify for his first state tournament as a regional champion meant a lot to him.

“The past couple of weeks I’m just been having good finals matches,” Bentley said. “It’s great to see the results after all the work I’ve put in.”

Bentley made a title happen Friday by scoring four points in the closing seconds of the first period for what turned out to be an insurmountable 4-0 lead. Bentley was awarded two near-fall points with four seconds left.

“I was able to get the takedown, and I saw I only had a little bit of time left,” Bentley said. “Usually guys let down toward the end of the period, so I was able to catch him arm and tilt him real quick.”

Up 4-1, Bentley extended his lead to 6-1 on an escape and stalling point in the first 90 seconds of the third period.

Handley coach Troy Mezzatesta would have loved to send more wrestlers to states, but he was proud of Bentley (41-5) for making his first state tournament.

“He’s been working his tail off for so long,” Mezzatesta said. “[2017 Handley graduate Cam Bentley] set the bar for their family, and Web has been trying to reach it. I’m just glad that happened. He wrestled great.”

Handley had three regional participants. The fourth qualifier, Bishop, finished his regional championship match last week against James Wood’s Curd, but the injury he suffered in the defeat prevented him from wrestling this week.

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