Region 4C Wrestling Tournament

ASHBURN — In winning the Class 4 Northwestern District tournament on Feb. 3, the Sherando wrestling team had a performance that was nearly identical to the one it had in taking the 2022 district title.

At Saturday’s Region 4C tournament, Loudoun County did just about everything it could to prevent the Warriors from repeating the regional success they had last year.

The Captains only had one more championship finalist (five) and one more state qualifier (eight) than Sherando, but Loudoun County went 7-1 in head-to-head matches with the Warriors to win Saturday’s 15-team tournament at Independence High School with 173 points to runner-up Sherando’s 150.

Though the Warriors scored only a half a point less at the district tournament this year compared to last year, their path to a region title figured to be harder. Sherando had 10 top-two seeds for the region tournament last year compared to seven this year.

Sherando coach Brian Kibler noted that the Captains, with six No. 1 seeds and three No. 2 seeds, came into this year’s region tournament with more favorable bracket matchups than the Warriors. Loudoun County did not let that advantage go to waste.

“We highlighted the things we needed to do to win the tournament,” Kibler said. “Winning head-to-heads [with Loudoun County], making sure we’re helping ourselves by performing to or exceeding seed, and be ready to fight. In a couple places we were ready to fight, but we fell short in a lot of places. Coming into it, we felt we needed to put six in the finals and maybe a third [place] and a fourth [place].”

Regional champions Anthony Lucchiani (sophomore, 126 pounds) and Keagan Judd (senior, 150) will lead a group of seven Sherando wrestlers who will compete in the Class 4 state state tournament Friday and Saturday at the Virginia Beach Sports Center as a result of placing in the top four of their respective weight classes.

James Wood (third with 108 points) qualified five wrestlers for the state tournament. Handley (eighth, 73.5 points) and Millbrook (ninth, 68) will send four each to Virginia Beach. Other local regional champions were James Wood sophomores Colton Bendure (120) and James Battulga (138) and Handley junior Nick Baker (132).

Judd (45-1), a two-time state champion, had the closest finals match among the local champions. He took on a wrestler he knows well in Lightridge senior Nicholas Marck (49-2), who Judd defeated 2-0 in last year’s Region 4C semifinals and pinned in the third period after building up a 6-0 lead in the Class 4 state semifinals.

Marck isn’t easy to score against, but Judd did it quickly twice. He took him down 18 seconds into the first period, then reversed him 15 seconds into the second period for a 4-1 lead.

Marck held strong, though. Lightridge fans got excited at the end of the second period when it looked like Marck was starting to shift Judd into a favorable position, but the buzzer sounded before anything came of it.

In the third period, Marck managed an escape to make it 4-2 10 seconds in. They continued to battle, and Marck looked like he might have a chance to take advantage of Judd with 32 seconds left when the match was stopped to tend to Judd’s knee when Marck drove at Judd hard.

But Marck never came close to getting the takedown he needed to tie. The match ended 4-2 and Judd won his third regional title in three attempts (Frederick County did not participate in the 2021 Virginia High School League postseason).

Judd said he had knee surgery his freshman year, so he wasn’t concerned when his knee got banged up.

“Knee pain is not new to me,” said Judd, who pinned his first two opponents on Saturday in the first 50 seconds. “It just got tweaked up a little. It felt weird, but I put ice on it and it’s fine now.

“I knew [Marck] was going to come out ready to swing since I beat him last year two times. I was just ready for war.”

Lucchiani (46-2) was told ahead of his finals match that he just needed to prepare to have his arm raised by the referee. Dominion senior Mic Creamer (31-6) decided not to risk aggravating an injury and forfeited, which gave Lucchiani — a state champion at 120 pounds last year — his second straight regional title. Lucchiani — who has never wrestled Creamer before — won his first two matches on Saturday by fall and major decision.

“At this point, there’s really not much to work on,” Lucchiani said. “It’s more of just keeping my endurance up, keeping my weight down, working hard, trying to get better at all my techniques.

“My postseason has really got off to a good start. I’ve had no offensive points scored against me, which I really enjoy. I’m feeling good about this postseason.”

Sherando also had seniors Tyler Koerner (132) and Brogan Teter (144) compete in the championship finals. In a rematch of the Class 4 Northwestern District championship, Baker defeated Koerner 9-1. Teter fell to undefeated Luke Roberts of Loudoun County 15-5 in the 144 final. Roberts (23-0) won the state title at 138 pounds last year and will wrestle for the University of Virginia next year.

Other placers for the Warriors were senior Zachary Hayes (third at 138 pounds), junior Jake Dann (fourth at 165) and senior Storm Miller (fourth at 190). Senior Peter Richardson — who beat Handley freshman Thomas Thorpe 13-2 in the district championship at 157 pounds — fell 1-0 to Thorpe in the consolation semifinals on an escape in the second period and had to settle for fifth place.

A week ago, Bendure (41-2) avenged a loss on Jan. 18 to Liberty’s Christian Eberhart with a 6-2 win in the district championship finals. On Saturday, Bendure had another strong performance in the finals against a wrestler who had given him trouble in the past.

After winning his first two matches by fall and a 6-2 decision (over Handley sophomore Hayden Thompson in the semifinals), Bendure defeated Loudoun County’s Lincoln Kelley 6-3 in the finals. Bendure had two takedowns in the first period to build a 4-2 lead, then had a reversal 32 seconds into the third period for a 6-2 advantage. Bendure had to rally from 3-0 to beat Kelley 6-5 in their last match on Jan. 21 at McLean.

“I’ve been working harder,” Bendure said. “That loss [to Eberhart] really humbled me. I’ve been working on fixing my mistakes in the room, and with the coaches helping me I’ve become a better wrestler.

“[Against Kelley] I knew my offense was good enough to keep up with his. I knew if I kept pressuring, that would demotivate him, and I knew I had a good chance of getting my takedowns off my high-percentage setups.”

Not long after Bendure won his second regional title, Battulga — who did not compete for the Colonels in last year’s postseason — improved to 5-0 in this year’s postseason and to 42-8 overall with a convincing 10-1 major decision over Loudoun County’s Josiah Smith.

Battulga — who won his first two matches by a fall and 7-2 decision — had takedowns or reversals within 30 seconds in each period, and followed up his takedown in the second period with three near fall points.

“I just did a lot of good work on top,” Battulga said. “Lately, I’ve been working with all my coaches on how to break down and how to turn people, and that really helped me today.

“I’m pretty happy with this. I wasn’t really surprised I won at districts. I’m thankful to my coaches for helping me.”

Five schools had more region qualifiers than James Wood’s seven, including Loudoun County (14) and Sherando (13). The Colonels who did compete made the most of the tournament. Others who will head to Virginia Beach are freshman Max Mooney (second at 106 after falling 3-1 to Dominion freshman Bryce Schnelzer in the finals), and sophomores Blake Messick (132) and Orion Cox (190), who each placed third.

“As a whole, we wrestled outstanding,” James Wood coach Cory Crenshaw said. “And even though are other two guys didn’t advance, they wrestled some boys today and put them in some positions they probably didn’t want to be in. Marshall [Juergens at 132] almost beat [Dominion’s Creamer] and had a very good match against the Dulles No. 2 to try and make it to states, and Dylan Tews finished fifth.”

Crenshaw liked Bendure’s and Battulga’s aggressiveness. After a scoreless first period in the finals, Mooney had an escape with 58 seconds left in the second period to cut his deficit to 3-1. But he couldn’t get out from the bottom in the third period against Schnelzer.

“Max has come a long way,” Crenshaw said. “He’s done great things for himself all year so far. If we can get out on bottom there [in the third], it’s a different ballgame. We had a couple opportunities there in the first where we didn’t get the takedown, but he kept working.”

Against Koerner, Baker had a takedown 45 seconds in, then had a reversal in the second and takedown in the third, each within 15 seconds to open up a 6-1 lead. Baker — who won by technical fall in the quarterfinals and 4-0 over Messick in the semifinals — added three near fall points later.

Baker’s regional title is his first, and now he’ll look for his first state title after he was the runner-up to Lucchiani last year.

“I’m just grateful that I have this opportunity to go to states,” Baker said. “I’m just going to wrestle each match one at a time, really.”

Surprisingly, Baker was the only finalist for Handley. Judges senior Simon Bishop had a 13-0 lead against Broad Run’s Tyler Staub in the 165-pound semifinals, but Staub made the one move he needed to pin Bishop 44 seconds into the third period.

Bishop did come back to finish third by pinning both of his opponents in the consolation bracket, beating Sherando’s Dann in 2:50 for third.

“He wrestled fantastic up 13-0,” said Judges coach Troy Mezzatesta of the Staub match. “That was a heartbreaker to lose, but he responded and came back with two big wins and really helped out the team.”

Mezzatesta was impressed by how Thorpe responded against Richardson after falling to him last week. Richardson was clearly upset after the match was over, but he embraced Thorpe before leaving the mat. Thorpe wound up finishing fourth.

“I think he came out really tight early,” Mezzatesta said. “You can’t wrestle not to make mistakes. You’ve got to be willing to put it all out there. When he started doing that, he started wrestling back to the way he’d been wrestling all year.

“[Richardson] is a great kid and a class act. He had a great year, so I felt bad for him.”

After losing twice twice earlier this season, Eberhart defeated Thompson 5-4 in last week’s district semifinals. Thompson defeated Eberhart 2-0 in the 120 third-place match on Saturday.

After finishing last in the seven-team Class 4 Northwestern District, Handley’s four state qualifiers lifted the Judges to a solid region showing.

“Those four kids have wrestled well all year long,” Mezzatesta said. “They continue to work at it, and they deserve to be moving on.”

Millbrook only had two state qualifiers last year. They doubled that this year with senior Jake Helmut, who is returning at 285 and placed third on Saturday. First time state participants are junior Jason Coleman (175) and sophomore Ezra Doyle-Naegeli (215), who also placed third, and junior Julian Cusick, who took fourth at 150.

Doyle-Naegeli pinned Loudoun County’s Jackson Snyder in the third-place match after losing to him in Millbrook’s first tournament of the year, and Coleman beat Liberty’s Logan Buchanan 10-6 in the third-place match after previously losing to him twice.

“Jason was a first-year wrestler last year, so for him to grow so quickly in a couple of years, that’s good,” Pioneers coach Jeff Holmes said. “[Coleman] had a really good couple weeks of practice, so I knew he was going to do some things [in the postseason]. We wanted another shot [at Buchanan], and he made the best of it, so I was really happy with that. Julian struggled earlier in the year and was overcoming some sicknesses and stuff. He’s really turned it on at the end of the year.

“I just think all of our guys are wrestling definitely better. I think we’re climbing the ladder so to speak. We’ll see how they perform next week.”

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