WRESTLING
Winters Mill reigns in Carroll
Bel Air claims 6th straight crown; seniors deliver for Oakland Mills in Howard
Trevor Fawley didn’t like his chances heading into the 170-pound championship bout during the Carroll County wrestling tournament Saturday at Westminster High School.
Three weeks of illness set him back, Fawley said, and he wasn’t pleased with his performance in the semifinals despite escaping with a win. Fawley tried to get a read on his finals opponent, Liberty’s McClain Butler, an all-county football player in the fall, and the Winters Mill senior came away with one scouting report.
“He’s big and strong,” Fawley said.
But Fawley said he and his six Falcons teammates that advanced to the finals needed to heed the advance given by coach John Lowe if they wanted to find success.
“Coach comes up to me and he’s like, ‘Look dude, just go have fun,’” Fawley said. “And I was like, ‘All right.’ And he said, ‘The reason why the last match was so close is because you were wrestling not to lose. So I went out there and was like, ‘[Shoot], let’s wrestle to win.’”
Fawley clipped Butler 7-5 to win the county title at 170, and he helped Winters Mill finish first in the team standings for the program’s first tournament championship in five years.
Fawley and Zach Kirby (126) were WM’s lone county champs, but the Falcons had secured the team title before then. They finished with 177.5 points, staying ahead of runner-up South Carroll (161 points) and third-place Liberty (150).
The Cavaliers, who won the previous four county tournament team titles, crowned five individual champs — freshman Ryan Athey (106), seniors Tyler Harbison (145) and Steven Dahl (152), sophomore Antonio Bradford (160), and senior Pat Quinn (285).
Harbison improved to 10-0; Dahl won his second consecutive county title; and Athey impressed in his county tournament debut by running his record to 36-1.
Liberty had champions in freshman Ryan Ohler (113) and seniors Jacob Gaskin (132) and Noah Wienclawski (182), who won his second straight county title. Gaskin’s 4-2 win over WM’s Colby Unkart was his 100th career victory.
Manchester Valley placed fourth with 145 points, led by a pair of county champions in sophomore Heathe Hernandez (120) and junior Chad Schaffer (138).
Upper Chesapeake
Bel Air won its sixth straight Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference championshipat Edgewood High School.
The Bobcats, led by four champions, amassed 247.5 points to beat runner-up C. Milton Wright’s 225. Patterson Mill was third with 151, a point better than Havre de Grace (150), which competed with just eight wrestlers. Harford Tech (132.5) rounded out the top five among 15 competing schools.
“Your goal every year is to just be really competitive and get your team to be at their best at the end of the year,” Bel Air coach Craig Reddish said. “The fact that you can do it six years in a row, with a lot of same guys, but then multiple guys in different classes and different generations, is really a testament to our coaching staff and our feeder system, out school. The credit to the wrestlers, they really put the time in, they work hard.”
Maybe none harder than senior Brent Lorin, who won the 113-pound title, his third UCBAC title.
Lorin dropped into the 113 weight class from 120, where CMW sophomore James Riveira had been beating Lorin, since Lorin beat him in their first high school meeting last year. The move gave Lorin the chance to win the third title. Lorin won a forfeit and two pins to gain the final, where he beat CMW sophomore Constantino Gourgoulianis by 17-5 major decision. The win, Lorin’s 169th, is the most ever by a UCBAC wrestler.
Anne Arundel County
When Old Mill coach Jim Grim embraced South River coach John Klessinger after the final bout of the county championship, it wasn’t as one coach accepting defeat to another.
It was as equals. On Saturday, both Old Mill and South River proved that the sun hadn’t set on their twin wrestling dynasties yet.
“Old Mill and us are the most dominant programs in the county hands down,” South River heavyweight Ka’Ron Lewis said. “We go back and forth every year. It’s good competition. We make each other better; we have a great relationship with them.”
Though the Patriots led the Seahawks all weekend, South River rallied to wind up tying for the county championship with 208 points each. For Old Mill, Saturday’s title was its second-straight and fourth in six years, while South River has won three titles in four years.
Together, the two teams further a dual winning streak. No team that isn’t named Old Mill or South River has won the counties for a very long time.
“It’s a constant job,” Klessinger said. “You can’t just sit back and think it’s going to happen. It’s year-round, getting kids to work out and wrestle in the offseason. You can’t rest on your laurels too much. That’s a level of expectation we’ve slowly built and our kids have bought in for the most part.”
Howard County
Oakland Mills senior heavyweight Ernie Smith said he felt as if he won two county titles: one for him and one for the team.
While that’s not entirely true, as the Scorpions had 11 grapplers place among the top four of their brackets, the team title at the 50th annual Howard County wrestling tournament Friday at Mount Hebron was still up for grabs when Smith took the mat for the final match of the night.
The senior delivered for his squad the best way possible. With Glenelg leading the team race by two points, Smith’s 5-1 victory over Reservoir’s Dylan Altman gave Oakland Mills four crucial team points for a total of 217.5 and its first county championship since 2015.
“When I jumped up and down with the team they said I won it for the team. I didn’t even know that,” Smith admitted.
“It does make it extra special: last match of the night, you win your county title and then you turn around and the team’s there,” Scorpions coach Brad Howell said. “That team title means more to you then that individual title. The closeness of the kids and the bonds between the team and the coaches and parents ... It feels real good to win it with a group.”
Glenelg, which still crowned a tournament-high four champions in Kevin Hansberger (126), Jared Thomas (138), Jake Arnone (182) and Sam Alsheimer (195), scored 215.5 points and fell just short of winning its fourth consecutive county tournament championship.
Atholton (187 points), Hammond (180.5) and River Hill (120) rounded out the top five teams and were followed by Centennial (111), Mt. Hebron (106), Marriotts Ridge (91), Howard (81), Reservoir (52), Long Reach (45) and Wilde Lake (21).
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