Colonels open 4-1

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — Sherando was without several of its football-playing wrestlers Wednesday, and James Wood came into the year expecting to be a better tournament team than dual match team.

By the end of the night, though, they were clearly two of the best teams in the Sherando High School gymnasium.

The Warriors and Colonels each went 4-1 in the Andrew Kenney Memorial to tie for the second-best mark in the 10-team event, which pitted teams from the Northwestern District against four teams from the Evergreen District and Spotswood. (Warren County was not present.) No inter-district matches took place.

Only Fauquier, which went 5-0 and handed the Colonels and Warriors their only losses, sported a better record than the Frederick County rivals. (The Falcons defeated James Wood 39-22 and Sherando 52-18.) Millbrook and Brentsville tied for fourth (3-2), Skyline and Liberty tied for sixth (2-3), Handley and Kettle Run tied for eighth (1-4), and Spotswood was the only winless team at 0-5.

Sherando coach Pepper Martin said he was impressed by the effort.

“I thought we wrestled hard tonight,” Martin said. “It wasn’t necessarily technically sound, but the kids wrestled hard. A number of matches we won in the third period on conditioning.

“It’s a great way to start the season. We wrestled some extra kids, and you take it for what it’s worth. A few young kids experienced a little bit of success, so hopefully that will have a carryover effect, and we got out veterans some valuable mat time.”

For Nick Bakos — just five days removed from football — there’s not a moment on the match that isn’t valuable.

Bakos will eventually settle at 171 pounds, but because he’ll need time to cut his football weight, he wrestled at 189. He didn’t miss a beat, recording a 5-0 mark with three pins and one major decision.

Martin wanted the football players to rest most of this week, but three players, including Bakos, elected to start practice immediately on Monday, and two of them wrestled Wednesday.

“I love football, but I was born into this sport,” Bakos said. “I just wanted to get right back in and wrestle in this.

“It’s my last year. I know what it’s like for my senior football year to end. God knows what it’s going to be like for this. I wanted to get as much time as possible in the wrestling room.”

The Warriors were also led by Brandon Fletcher (5-0 at 112 pounds), Levi McDonald (125, 4-1), Aaron Laboy (4-1, 135), Patrick Maclaine (4-1, 140), Cody Mead (4-1, 152) and Travis Gunter (4-1, 285).

While everyone else started at 3 p.m., the Colonels had to cool their heels for nearly 90 minutes because Liberty arrived late. (James Wood earned a forfeit win over the Eagles and started its night against Kettle Run.)

The Colonels started out strong with wins over the Cougars (67-11) and Spotswood (66-15), then gave Fauquier one of its sternest tests of the night.

Aided by thrilling wins from Seth Fauver (who scored a reversal and three-point nearfall in the final 30 seconds to win 9-6 at 189 pounds) and Isaac Meadows (whose takedown with 30 seconds established the second three-point lead of the match in a 14-13 win at 112), James Wood took a 22-9 lead on Gage Swartz’s pin at 119. But Chuck Hillary’s pin at 125 for Fauquier started a five-match winning streak to end the Colonels’ hopes.

Overall though, Walker will definitely take what he got from James Wood on Wednesday.

“We did a lot better than I thought we would,” Walker said. “We still have a lot of room for improvement, though. We’re still young, but they did great. We had four freshmen in the lineup. We had some mental mistakes, but they made some great moves and did things that we taught them well.”

James Wood was led by Swartz (5-0), Meadows (4-0), Mark Bean (5-0, primarily at 189), Austin Woodall (5-0, 285), Taylor Swartz (4-1, 103), Cody Landis (4-1, 130), and Fauver (3-0, mainly at 171). Particularly impressive was former junior varsity wrestler Josh Adkins, who went 4-1 with three pins at 125.

Millbrook fared well with wins over Liberty (43-21), Kettle Run (76-12) and Spotswood (77-6), particularly since one of its best wrestlers, Luke Anderson (112/119), missed the match because of illness.

“I’m pretty pleased for our first day,” Millbrook coach John Borst said. “Our philosophy is that we still try and score as many points as possible, try to push the action and count on making it into the third period still being fresh, and we showed that.”

The Pioneers were led by Tanner Sine (5-0, 103), John Sharp (5-0, 171), Joe Jessen (5-0, 189), Ryan Runion (4-1, 130), Dillon Dean (4-1, 145), Carter Barnett (4-1, 160), and Mike Carlson (4-1, 285).

The Judges got their lone win against Spotswood (42-33) and had four wrestlers post winning records — Cory Crenshaw (4-1, 130), Cody Crenshaw (4-1, 135), Tom Delaney (4-1, 145), and Randy Repass (3-2, 140).

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