YES, UVA IS AT ‘HOME’ ON ROAD
ODU, Virginia Tech, U.Va. win, but most area prep teams fall
The Cavaliers basketball team, at Clemson today, wants a 12th straight road win.
HAMPTON — The 39th annual Virginia Duals kicked off Friday at the Hampton Coliseum with high school and college competition.
Area teams fared well in college action, but — except for New Kent — not as well otherwise.
Third-seeded Old Dominion and second-seeded Virginia Tech advanced to a semifinal against each other. The Monarchs beat Kent State 30-10, and the Hokies outclassed Chattanooga 35-4.
Meanwhile, Virginia upended No .4 seed Lock Haven 32-12 to move into a semifinal against top-seeded Arizona State. Those semifinals are at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The Apprentice School won its opening American College Division match, 29-16 over fourth-seeded Alderson Broaddus of West Virginia. The Builders jumped to an 18-0 lead through the first four bouts. Colton Messick (125 pounds) and Ty Boyd (141) won by fall, while Kolin Johnson scored an 8-2 decision over Curtis Cox, and Tyler Allen defeated Levi Hobbs 4-2.
Chad Simmons (165) earned a technical fall with his 18-3 win, and Peter Cortapasso turned the fastest fall of the match with his eightsecond pin in the 285-pound bout.
The Builders will face top-seeded Kutztown in a semifinal at 2 p.m. Saturday, an unenviable task for Apprentice coach Micah Am roz owiczandh is team.
“They are ranked in the top 20 for Division II,” said Amrozowicz, whose team reached the semifinals for the second straight year. “We just want to be competitive. We’re kind of beat up.”
In the National High School Divi-
sion, New Kent saw its perfect 21-match dual streak end in a painful fashion. The Trojans, facing McDonogh of the Baltimore area, darted to a 37-12 lead with five bouts remaining. However, Michael Ancel (170), Dominic Solis (182) and Jackson Bonitz (195) of McDonogh scored first-minute falls to close the Trojans’ lead to 37-30.
Jack Wimmer (220) followed with a 14-5 major decision over New Kent’s Jamar Christian to pull the Eagles within 37-34. In the final match, at 285 pounds, Cody Williams, on the strength of an escape and reverse, edged past New Kent’s Buddy Whitecotton 3-0 to knot the final score at 37.
During the tiebreaking proceedings, McDonogh had a point deducted from its team score for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the Trojans appeared to win the match. However, a minute later, the penalty against the Eagles was withdrawn. On the tiebreaking criterium of first points scored in bouts, McDonogh gained a berth to the quarterfinals.
In spite of the tough loss, Trojans coach Mike Faus remained optimistic. “We’re pretty strong in the mid-weights. They were missing a couple of their top guys ,” Fa us said of McDonogh, which was last year’s National High School bracket runner-up.
Warwick, which entered the Duals with an 18-6 record, dropped an 84-0 match to top-seeded Parkersburg South team from West Virginia, which is ranked in the national top 40.
The New Kent and Warwick losses set up a head-to-head match in the 1 p.m. consolation round, which provided a rarity — an opportunity for the presumed champions of the Bay Rivers and Peninsula districts to face off in Duals action.
New Kent won 69-6, scoring nine falls and a forfeit to build a 60-0 lead before the Raiders’ Marlen Wilson won a 7-4 decision over Branden Day at 182 pounds. Staley Hampton (195) followed with a 3-1 decision over Ben Johnson for Warwick’s points.
For the Trojans, Raymond Goode (120), Dom Baker (126) and Gannon Jones (160) won their first two bouts by pin
In other National action, Lafayette lost its first-round match 73-3 to second-seeded Liberty of Bethlehem, Pa. Jordan Robins scored the Rams’ lone victory with a 5-2 decision over Niazi Ansar.
Lafayette moved into the consolation bracket and lost 55-24 to Eastern View from Culpeper County.
BRD struggles in Black & Blue Division
The Bay Rivers District’s three entrants in the Black & Blue Division went 0-3 in the first round, with Poquoson suffering a 36-33 defeat to Powhatan, Smithfield falling 48-30 to Liberty of Bealeton and York losing 46-27 to Tallwood.
The Islanders led 33-18 before Powhatan won the final four bouts, including a sudden-victory 4-2 triumph by Indians heavyweight Jarret Tronge over Evan Graham to break a 33-33 tie.
Karon Smith, Brett Poultney, Trevor Wiggins, Cole Parks, Joseph Chiappazzi and Conrad Johnson won their bouts for the Islanders.
Smithfield’s victories came from Nikolas Voros, Brad en Kerr, BrandonV or os, Cameron H at chett,Ka ne Sarhon and Samuel Feliciano. Liberty won the final three bouts.
York’s victors were Bradyn Waddell, Brandon Latta, Josh Evans, John Michael Cassidy and Jake Verry.
Brothers in concurrent action
With as many as 10 bouts taking place at once, interesting scenarios can develop. For instance, in the first round, the brothers Messick — Colton and Dillon, both with ties to Warwick High — wrestled on separate mats at the same time.
Colton Messick, a 125-pounder for Apprentice School, won by fall (3:29) over Breandon Coughlin of Alderson Broaddus to give the Builders an early 6-0 edge in their eventual victory.
Dillon, currently wrestling with the Raiders, gained his 100th career match victory Wednesday, but he was pinned in 3:32 by Brayden Johnson of Parkersburg South.
New screens
There is a noticeable addition to the Duals this year as two large video screens were installed at the east end of the coliseum, hovering over Mats 1 and 6.
The left screen kept a visual update of all matches taking place, with the wrestlers’ names, schools, running time clocks and match scores, which were updated with remarkable consistency.
In the early rounds, the right screen flashed the Peninsula Wrestling Association/Virginia Duals logo, but by the middle of the second round, it featured one of the ongoing bouts, as shown on the Trackcast subscription feed.
Peninsula-less American
No Peninsula teams were entered in the American High School bracket. Last year, Poquoson placed second in that division, which the Islanders were pushed into as the winners of the 2017 Black & Blue.
By Duals rules, a team that wins the Black & Blue or American High School Division must move to the next-higher competition the following year.