Parlaying the confidence built during our recent wins over VES and Roanoke Catholic, without being presumptuous, our guys squared their shoulders in preparation for a tournament with 16 public and private school teams. All in all, our boys wrestled hard and many earned some medals.
Richardson won by a pin, Lost his second match, ended his third behind by a single point then came back with another pin to earn a 5th place.
Gabe Medlin was seeded first and won his matches by pins until getting caught in an error and held on his back to earn a 2nd place.
Khraisat was by far the most surprising by, as a first-year wrestler, winning his matches before falling to a skilled opponent. Khraisat wears his silver medal with pride.
Wallace started out a bit rough but refocused and came back through the consolation rounds to earn a 6th place.
Weight classes between 145 and 160 are considered the most competitive since they are riddled with some of the strongest, pound-for-pound, wrestlers in the sport. Morris is on the light end of that group and faced many skilled opponents, often having to go the full six minutes of combat in low scoring matches. He ultimately walked away with a 4th place.
Griffith’s weight class is also really competitive but he showed his stripes by beating his opponents. He, unfortunately, did not get the gold, falling to a skilled “leg-rider” who found Griffith’s weakness and took advantage of it for the win. He is content with a silver but still aches for the gold.
White got knocked into the consolation rounds early but crawled back from that loss to place 6th by only two points.
Hohimer followed White’s path and came back from the consolation rounds only to again wrestle, for 5th place, the opponent who beat him in his first match. It was touch and go for a while but Hohimer badly wanted a rematch and ultimately proved triumphant, earning a 5th place.
