Lord Botetourt was 13th and James River was 14th among 32 schools that scored in last week’s “Big Blue” wrestling tournament in Christiansburg. The host Blue Demons won the tournament with 220 points to put second place Brentsville in the rear view mirror with 173.
Botetourt had 105.5 points and River had 103.5 in a tournament that drew teams from all over the East Coast. The top eight wrestlers scored.
“It was a long Friday night,” said LB coach Chuck Burton. “We got started late and didn’t finish up wrestling until 12:45 a.m. With that said, I thought our kids handled themselves well. We faced some top notch competition over the weekend and found out what we need to work on to get ready for the end of the year.”
Top eight finishers for LB included Nicholas Young with a fifth at 145, Sam Francis in 5th at 152 and Colin Sell in sixth at 126.
“We beat some good kids and we got beat by some good kids,” said Burton. “Overall, we have to focus more on making our drills more important in practice. Our kids learned where they need to improve and I’m sure they’ll take ownership of that in the next few weeks.
River had two fifth places, Mason Stewart at 138 and Levi Walker at heavyweight. Addison McCaleb was sixth at 182 and Hunter Forbes took a seventh at 145.
“We had a really good tournament and the James River Knights showed up and earned some respect,” said coach Bobby Stewart. “This was a big and very competitive tournament. Top schools from Virginia and West Virginia showed up for the two-day gauntlet and our kids did well. I saw some really good things out of the guys.”
The Knights are at Northside for a tri-match tonight while LB goes to Hidden Valley. The Cavaliers are scheduled to wrestle in the Pioneer Duals at Heritage High School in Lynchburg on Saturday.
