South River edges past Chesapeake in holiday tournament
Listorti sets school record with 133rd win
Senior Moni Dove stepped onto the mat to face Dawson Hoover of Chesapeake for the second-to-last match of the first-round dual of the South River Duals. The circumstances surrounding the moment Thursday morning might’ve been unusual, but there was nothing unfamiliar about the expectations weighing Dove then.
A perilously thin South River lead hung in the balance as Dove fell behind Hoover, 3-2, in the 126-pound match. but he kept his mind right and focused on getting into good position.
Then Hoover shifted in a way Dove hadn’t anticipated.
“I capitalized on it,” Dove said. “I just pinned him on it.”
The senior mustered all his power and flung Hoover down, twisting him into a position the Cougar couldn’t fight back. Then, Dove heard the hand smacking the mat signaling he had won. His pin — South River’s sixth of the dual — helped solidify the Seahawks’ 42-28 win over Chesapeake.
After a couple “rough” weeks for South River, a win like this earned much appreciation from the Seahawks team riddled with injuries and sickness.
“We’re still learning. We’ve got three or four brand-new kids in the lineup. But that was encouraging,” Seahawks coach John Klessinger said. “Hopefully, we see them again because this is just a tournament. This is just pride.”
Though it was the Cougars’ third defeat of the two-day tournament — Chesapeake dropped duals to high-powered Kent Island and St. Mary’s Ryken on Wednesday — this served as, technically, the Cougars’ first county loss.
Chesapeake was without several wrestlers that could’ve made matters even tighter, so Klessinger knows their next meeting could look a little different.
“We’ve had [COVID] affect our lineup, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” Chesapeake coach Randy Curtin said, “because of the guys we had, some of them should’ve done better.
“We have to wrestle smarter and clean some things up on top and bottom.”
The surrounding dark cloud of coronavirus and the fast-spreading omicron variant has affected the way Klessinger, a longtime and devoted wrestling coach, shapes his program.
“In 20-some years of coaching, this is probably the most challenging in terms of accountability and discipline,” he said. “Obviously, there’s legitimate excuse — you want to keep kids home
that aren’t feeling great. But it’s making it tougher as a coach, as I’m sure it is everyone else, getting kids in the room.”
Chesapeake might have lost that first round Thursday morning, but in its midst was a signature moment.
Senior Victor Listorti, after a monster football season in which the running back shattered multiple program records and committed to play at Navy, stamped his name in the Chesapeake wrestling books.
With his 133rd win in a second-round dual with Arundel, Listorti now stands as the winningest wrestler in Chesapeake history. With several more months of wrestling ahead, the undefeated senior intends to move that mark out of anyone else’s reach again.
“Victor improved immensely from freshman year … to senior year, and he’s just continuing his dominance,” Curtin said.
Listorti collected one of three Cougars pins in the loss, so quickly that onlookers had barely time to register the figures on the mat had changed.
“He’s consistent,” Curtin said. “He’s easy to count on.”
Chesapeake’s usual load-bearers came through, even 145-pound Chase Listorti, who labored through shoulder pain to grab a 14-2 major decision and put the Cougars on the board.
Perhaps the most evenly matched dual of the day came at 152 pounds, as Chesapeake’s Owen Schmidt and South River’s Nolan Lunsford grappled with each other endlessly through three scoreless minutes before Schmidt began to eke out the upper hand. The Cougars senior gripped Lunsford around the collar bone, shoving him to the mat just before the third-period buzzer handed him a 5-1 decision and a temporary 7-6 Chesapeake lead.
Even as the two sides swapped individual wins, Chesapeake never really had a full grip on its foes. Not with the Seahawks sound-tracking their side with the sound of the official’s hand slapping the mat.
The Seahawks’ Lonnell Owens-Pabon (220), Maddox Brown (195) and Sam Ditmars (138) joined Johnson in collecting falls, consistently inflating South River’s score with sixes in the team score.
That isn’t to say Chesapeake gave up. No one embodied that spirit more than heavyweight Delmar White.
The freshman had never played varsity sports before wrestling this winter. And yet, White held his own against seasoned senior Racheil Coney, a mentee of two-time heavyweight champion Ka’Ron Lewis, and fell only by a 5-2 decision.
“That was the highlight of the match,” Curtin said.
With wins from the 195 through 106, the Seahawks could’ve cruised. Instead, two pins from Braydon Ambrose (113) — in 44 seconds — and Dylan Ritters (120) — in 17 seconds — gave Chesapeake life as it trailed South River by just two points, 30-28, with two matches to go.
“There was some discipline in the lightweights,” Curtin said, “towards the end and I think that was the difference.”
It all came down to Dove. He’d regularly struggled in tough matches during his sophomore year, not always quite reaching that potential. To his coaches, defeating a Chesapeake wrestler proved something.
“I just take what I can,” he said, “and I just build off of that.”
As he stood victorious, the official raising his arm, Klessinger could see how validating it had been for him.
“Winning that sealed it for us,” Klessinger said. “It was important for us, but it was important to him.”