Sherando, Wood send 14 to semifinal round

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Thirty seconds after Austin Woodall walked to the center circle while taking a couple of deep breaths, he recorded an unusual win, shooting for his opponent’s right leg, flipping head over heels, then landing on top in perfect position to cradle his opponent’s head and record the quarterfinal pin.

It wasn’t Woodall’s most artistic pin, and he doesn’t feel as strong as he’d like to be right now. But as the senior heavyweight proved Tuesday, his pretty good is superior to the best of most wrestlers.

Woodall was one of several Frederick County wrestlers who made a strong showing at the Willie Walters/Jaye Copp Holiday Tournament at James Wood’s Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium. Sherando (eight semifinalists) sits in third place with 118.5 points in the 19-team field, trailing only Saint Christoher (125.5) and New Kent (124.5). James Wood (six semifinalists) is in fourth with 90 points. Handley (no semifinalists) is in 19th with 24.5 points.

Action continues today with championship semifinals at 9:30 a.m. Four rounds of consolations will lead up to the finals, which will begin at approximately 5:30 p.m.

For Woodall, who won the Region II and Northwestern District tournaments and placed fourth in Group AA last year, semifinal appearances are nothing new. But he didn’t get off to the strongest start in that quarterfinal against Turner Ashby’s Michael LaPrade.

Twenty-seven seconds in, LaPrade wrapped his arms around Woodall’s midsection and dropped him on the edge of the mat. But despite the protestations of the Turner Ashby coach, he wasn’t awarded a takedown. Woodall rebounded to take a 2-1 lead after the first period, built it up to 4-1 at the 1:32 mark of the second, then, 1:04 later, Woodall recorded the pin that kept him in the championship bracket.

When asked if LaPrade surprised him early, and if so, if that made him focus more, Woodall hesitated a moment before cutting to the heart of the matter. His four-day holiday break from wrestling left him a little sluggish Tuesday, and his appearance at the Beast of the East Wrestling Tournament showed him he could use a little more beast in his body late in matches.

“That was a kind of wake-up call to me. There were a lot of good wrestlers there,” said Woodall, who nonetheless went 4-2 in the two-day tourney in Newark, Del. “I just need to be in shape. I was getting tired around the third period in the two matches that I lost.

“I’ve got a long way to go before I’m good enough to be a state champion.”

That’s the goal that James Wood coach Greg Walker emphasized to Woodall before the season’s outset. Walker said there’s no question it’s within Woodall’s grasp if he improves in some of the areas that made him one of the state’s best in the first place.

“We need to get back to wrestling and not worry about tying up with the big guys. We need to get pins,” Walker said. “At the end of the last year and beginning of this year he was running underhooks and sweeps and good tieups, finishing moves. We’re getting to it, we’re just not finishing. It’s all there, sometimes you just go through cold streaks.”

The good thing for Woodall is that he’s not concerned about his future. He’s confident it will be a strong one.

“As long as I keep going hard in practice, drilling, conditioning, I’m not worried about where I need to be,” he said.

For the most part, Sherando and James Wood liked where they were at the end of the first day.

Advancing to the semifinals for the Warriors were Brandon Fletcher (112), Levi McDonald (125), Aaron Laboy (135), Patrick Maclaine (140), Rodney Twigg (152), Nick Bakos (171), Baxter Newman (215), and Travis Gunter (285). Sherando’s effort was particularly impressive given that five of the wrestlers it started Tuesday will likely come down a weight class and one or two that didn’t could end up starting.

“We wrestled a fantastic first round,” Sherando coach Pepper Martin said. “Realistically, it was only going to get tougher in the quarters. We won the ones we were supposed to win, and the ones that were toss-ups we were about 50-50. There were four matches that could have gone either way, and we got two out of four on those. Hopefully at the end of the day we can recharge and make a run for it tomorrow.”

Those on the Colonels who joined Woodall in the semis were Taylor Swartz (103), Gage Swartz (119), Cory Schrock (160), Seth Fauver (171), and Mark Bean (189).

“That’s good for us,” Walker said. “We had an opportunity to get another one through, but this is a good feeling, because there’s some good teams here. If we can get four of those six to the finals, we’ll be in good shape.”

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.