Sherando sweeps wrestling quad at James Wood

WINCHESTER — When it comes to the 2022-23 Sherando wrestling team, one thing that’s clear is that satisfaction with the status quo is not an option.

The Warriors improved to 15-1 in dual matches and 3-0 in Class 4 Northwestern District matches on Wednesday night with decisive wins over Millbrook (43-21), Bull Run District member Central (46-28) and James Wood (55-16) at the Colonels’ Shirley Gymnasium.

Impressive stuff, but the Warriors know they need to execute even better than they are now if they want to have the type of season they had last year. In 2021-22, they captured postseason tournaments for the first time in eight years by winning the district and Region 4C tournaments and placed second in Class 4, the best state finish in program history.

“I think our guys do have high expectations, and they should have high expectations when you look at what we brought back,” said Sherando coach Brian Kibler, whose team only lost four starters from last year’s team and features four state placewinners. “We need to continue to improve. We need to be able to elevate ourselves to the level we want to be at.

“We need to be able to close [out] matches and win close matches. They’re won by takedowns and having good action and capitalizing on key moments in matches.”

Each of the other three teams in Wednesday’s quad went 1-2. James Wood (5-5 overall, 0-2 district) beat Central (12-7) 42-32 in Round 1, Millbrook (9-12, 1-1) beat the Colonels 42-36 in Round 2, and the Falcons beat the Pioneers 42-34 in Round 3.

Sherando senior 150-pounder Keagan Judd feels the Warriors are wrestling well, but he’d love to see his squad take its desire to an even higher level.

“[Winning three matches] was a great booster for the team,” Judd said. “But we just need more energy and more wanting to do things. Our guys just need to buy in. If they buy in, we’re going to take them there.”

With Judd and sophomore 126-pounder Anthony Lucchiani, Sherando certainly has two people who are setting an example of how to get things done.

The defending state champions were two of six Warriors who went 3-0 on Wednesday. Judd (26-1 for the season) won each of his matches by fall while Lucchiani (26-2) had one pin, one tech fall (16-0) that took one period, and a forfeit win. Lucchiani did not wrestle last year’s 113-pound state runner-up Colton Bendure of James Wood, who moved down from 126 to 120 for the first time. James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw said that transition was discussed several weeks ago.

Others who went 3-0 for the Warriors were senior 144-pounder Brogan Teter (his 12-2 win against Central helped Sherando overcome a 28-27 deficit and start a run of 19 unanswered points to close the match), senior Pete Richardson (157, two pins), junior Jake Dann (165, one pin) and junior Zane Jenkins (175, three pins). Sophomore Damien Costello (106, one pin), junior Zachary Hayes (138, one pin) and senior Storm Miller (190) each went 2-1.

Judd and Lucchiani each came into Wednesday’s competition on particularly strong rolls after standout performances at two prestigious tournaments. Judd placed third at the Beast of the East in Delaware on Dec. 17-18 (Lucchiani didn’t place but went 5-2) and both captured their weight classes at last week’s Trojan Wars tournament in Chambersburg, Pa.

Even though Judd won his second state title in two attempts last year (Frederick County didn’t participate in the 2020-21 VHSL season), he didn’t feel he wrestled to his full potential. For example, his 6-4 combined record at the Beast and the Trojans Wars last season is something most wrestlers would take in a heartbeat, but Judd — a National High School Coaches Association junior national champion last year — is not like most wrestlers. This year, he went 10-1 in those two tournaments.

“My hand fighting and my neutral game has gotten a lot better,” said Judd, who added that he was riding wrestlers out on top and scoring a significant amount of points from the bottom in his recent successes.

Judd said his performance at the Beast of the East in particular showed his progress. Though he lost 6-2 to eventual runner-up Mekhi Neal of St. Mary Ryken, Judd wrestled aggressively, and it was the first time Neal hadn’t pinned him in their matchups. In the third-place match, Judd wrestled Mitchell Faglioni of St Christopher’s. They had split four previous matches with each other, with Faglioni winning the previous one by technical fall. This time, Judd won 3-0, getting an escape 41 seconds into the third period and a takedown 12 seconds later.

“I knew that he was good on top, so I couldn’t get turned,” Judd said. “There’s been a lot of redemption for me this year, and I feel I’ve progressed a lot.”

Lucchiani said the big things he’s working on this year are his pace and positioning. He felt he did well with his pace at the Beast, but he thought he improved with that at Trojan Wars.

Lucchiani’s championship win was particularly notable. He took on Bald Eagle Area senior Coen Bainey, who placed third in his weight class in Pennsylvania last year and is committed to American University. The two wrestlers pinned each other once each at last year’s Trojan Wars, with Bainey beating Lucchiani in their final match to take third. In their first match since, Lucchiani got a takedown with two seconds left to win 3-1.

“He was timing me the whole time,” Lucchiani said. “I have this thing where I get in my stance, then I’ll get out of it real quick and jump around and get my legs loose again. He timed it and tried to double-leg [takedown] me. He ended up getting up behind me and lifted me up to try and return me [to the mat] but I rolled through and got on top. In that moment I knew exactly what I had to do. I executed it and it worked out perfectly for me.”

Kibler said the execution that Judd and Lucchiani had last week is what he’s looking for from his entire team on a more consistent basis.

“They are wrestling very, very well,” Kibler said.

Millbrook coach Jeff Holmes — whose team was tied 18-18 with Sherando after eight matches after starting out at 165 pounds — was hoping to close out with wins in their final two matches. The Pioneers jumped out to a 27-6 lead in a 42-36 win over James Wood, but a pin by Central in the match-concluding 175-pound match denied them a second win in a 42-34 defeat.

“The first two matches, I thought we wrestled tough,” Holmes said. “We’re an inexperienced team, which kind of showed up in that last match. We’ve been going through the growing pains, but I see progress.

“That last one, I think would have been the icing on the cake. We kind of made a goal after Sherando that we were going to walk out of here 2-1. We didn’t quite reach our goal, but we’re going to keep fighting. We’re not where we’re capable of being at this point. We’re going to keep working towards that.”

Pioneers who went 3-0 were freshman Alex Stubblefield (126/132), senior Jason Coleman (one pin at 190) and senior Jett Helmut (one pin at 285). Sophomore Caden Cruz (one pin at 113), junior Julian Cusick (two pins at 150) and sophomore Ezra Doyle-Naegeli (one pin at 215) each went 2-1. Additionally, junior Jacob Wiseman got his first varsity win at 175 and freshman Landon Jones got his first varsity win at 106.

Stubblefield had one of the more dramatic wins, getting a takedown just before the final buzzer to defeat Sherando’s Richard Reyes 4-3 at 132.

“That’s what he’s capable of,” Holmes said. “I wish he had the confidence to do that more often. That’s one thing we’re working on with him, just that confidence to push forward and push the pace. The kid is one of the hardest workers in the room, so I know he’s got the gas. He doesn’t have a lot of wrestling experience, but he’s got the tools.”

Helmut — who placed fourth in Class 4 last year — had some strong wins against Sherando and Central. He beat the Warriors’ Ethan Gonzalez 2-1 in the tiebreaker overtime, with Gonzalez conceding an escape point to start the first 30-second session and Helmet riding out Gonzalez in the second 30-second session. After getting a forfeit win against James Wood, he pinned Central’s Nathan Lopez (third in Class 2 at 195 pounds last year) in the second period.

“With Jett, you know every match he wrestles in, he’s going to compete,” Holmes said. “[Helmut and Gonzalez] have history together, and [Gonzalez] is a big, strong kid and knows Jett. Jett wrestled to win. And he wrestled tough to beat the Central kid, because that’s a pretty decent kid, too.”

Crenshaw said his team — which is inexperienced in general and currently is forfeiting the 215 and 285 weight classes — performed about the way he expected. He thought his team wrestled tough, but just wasn’t able to pull out some close matches against Millbrook (10-8 at 113 and 5-3 at 126) and didn’t match up well against Sherando.

“We’ll just go back to the room and continue to work,” Crenshaw said. “We’re seeing improvement, but it doesn’t always stick. They get out on the mat and revert back to what they were doing. That’s just something we have to continue to work on and get fluent with.”

Freshman Max Mooney (106, two pins), Bendure (120, two pins, tech fall), and sophomore Blake Messick (132, one pin, two forfeits) each went 3-0 for the Colonels, and junior Dylan Tews (165, two pins) went 2-1.

A couple of other James Wood wrestlers came close to having better results.

Sophomore James Battulga — a Willie Walters/Jaye Copp tournament champion — gave Sherando’s Teter fits at 144. The match was scoreless until Teter got an escape with 26 seconds left in the second period, then a penalty point after Battulga lost his balance and put his feet near Teter’s head while Teter was kneeling made it 2-0 eight seconds later.

Battulga managed an escape nine seconds into the third period, but a penalty point for stalling with 14 seconds left gave Teter a 3-1 win.

One of two James Wood seniors (the Colonels held their Senior Night on Wednesday) and the only girl who wrestled Wednesday for any team, Autumn Van Bremen nearly pulled out a win against Millbrook (Cruz broke an 8-8 tie on a takedown with 35 seconds left) and was within 4-1 of Sherando’s Arya Rawat heading into the third period before being pinned.

“She just came down a weight class, and she’s competing against the boys,” Crenshaw said. “She did a fantastic job. She didn’t get any W’s tonight, but she gave herself a couple opportunities there. Once she becomes a little bit more [used] to this weight class, things will change a little more for her. She has the [VHSL] girls’ tournament at the end of the year, so that’s something else she can look forward to.”

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