The two Botetourt County wrestling teams will continue their busy early season schedule tonight when James River hosts Lord Botetourt and Liberty in Springwood. Wrestling begins at 6 p.m.
LB will take on Liberty in the opener, followed by James River against Liberty and then the two county schools go head-to-head. Lord Botetourt is also bringing a “bandit team” to make it a quad as Parry McCluer was originally scheduled to compete but dropped out.
Both county teams had a busy schedule last week. LB opened with a home match against Northside last Wednesday and won 54-25. Winners for LB included Haiden Reedy, James Dean, Declan Sullivan, Morgan Parr, Kevin Gergely, Cooper Roberts, Lucas Hipes, Ty Hensley and Gabriel Glenn.
“I thought we wrestled well against Northside for it to be early in the season,” said LB coach Paul Craft. “Coach Stewart at Northside always puts good wrestlers on the mat. The match went about how we expected. I think we’ll close the gap on one or two of those losses if we see them again later in the season.”
Botetourt sent their “Gray Team” of non-starters to Parry McCluer for the Blues Invitational on Saturday.
“We had a lot of freshmen and first year wrestlers pick up their first high school wins and pins,” said Craft. “We also had some more experienced guys that didn’t crack the starting lineup go up there and have some success.”
The Gray Team finished sixth in the tournament.
“It says a lot about our kids if we’re sending non-starters to a tournament, wrestling other school’s starters, and still being competitive,” said Craft.
Jasmine Andrade and Serenity Shearer wrestled at the Cavalier Clash for girls in Forest on Saturday. Jasmine had a couple wins and Serenity only lost one match on the day to the number six ranked wrestler in the state, finishing second.
James River opened the season at Glenvar last Wednesday and won two duals, defeating Hidden Valley, 48-27, and the host Highlanders, 40-35.
The Knights competed in the Titan Toughman Tournament at Hidden Valley High last weekend and finished ninth among 24 teams. Centreville High was the team winner followed by Patrick Henry and Glenvar.
Photos by Brian Hoffman
River’s Xaiden Wynn took first place at 113 to become a two-time Titan Toughman champion. Brayden Forbes also won at 132, and he’s also a two-time champ in the annual tournament. Josiah Merchant was second at 138 and Caiden Martin was fourth at 113.
“Two James River wrestlers in the top four places is a good accomplishment,” said River coach Bobby Stewart.
On Saturday, River’s Georgia Miller competed in the “Queen of the Ring Classic” in Herndon, Va., an all-girls event, and won the championship at 126 pounds. Georgia defeated her opponents with two pin fall wins and a technical fall win. Her championship match was a win by pin at the five-minute mark for the first tournament championship of her career.
This weekend the Knights will be in Richlands for a team duals tournament. Lord Botetourt will be at Cave Spring for the Knights of the Round Table tournament.
