Photo by Brian Hoffman
The Lord Botetourt and James River wrestlers will be back on the mats tonight and both will be in action this weekend, weather permitting.
James River will be wrestling at Bath County tonight after having a match at Floyd iced out last week. This Saturday, River will compete in a quad match at Liberty High School.
Lord Botetourt will host Jefferson Forest and William Byrd in Daleville tonight. LB will take on Jefferson Forest first, followed by JR against Byrd. Then, Byrd and Lord Botetourt will go at it to close out the night.
The Cavaliers will be at Union High School in Big Stone Gap this Saturday for the Steve Gardner Memorial Tournament. It’s a duals tournament that includes teams from Kentucky and Tennessee as well as some good programs from Southwest Virginia.
“I did my undergrad at Emory and Henry College where I met Eric Satterfield,” said LB coach Paul Craft. “He’s one of the Union coaches. I’ve known him for a long time and he asked if we’d like to come down. We jumped at the chance to wrestle some new quality teams. I’ve always loved that part of the state, it’s beautiful down there. Plus, it’s great to see some different wrestling. There’s a whole lot of wrestling out there besides the Roanoke area.”
Craft likes the idea of duals tournaments.
“The duals tournaments are something we’ve started scheduling more of instead of the individual tournaments,” he said. “You can have a bad day at an individual tournament and be out after two or three matches. In the duals format you’re guaranteed matches. We’ll wrestle five of them on Saturday against good teams.”
The LB girls will be traveling to Heritage High School on Saturday for a non-VHSL tournament, wrestling unattached from LB.
“The matches won’t count on their high school record but will still provide wrestling opportunities,” said Craft. “We thought this was our best move since their tournament last Saturday in Bristol was cancelled.”
