Sunday, Feb. 07, 2010

Cary wins Tri-9 tourney

The finals of the Tri-Nine wrestling tournament at Cary High School on Saturday looked a little more like an Imps dual match than the championship round of an individual event.

Of the 14 weight classes contested, Cary had representatives in eight and brought home titles in six to capture yet another conference tournament championship.

“We’re really pretty strong throughout the lineup,” Imps coach Jerry Winterton said. “When I look at our team this year, I don’t really see a weight class where we’re weak.”

The veteran coach still saw plenty of room for improvement, though.

“I wasn’t too overly happy with how we wrestled,” Winterton said. “A couple of our better wrestlers lost early and we had to rely on other guys for scoring. We just need to get back (to practice) and get better.”

Justin Leroux and Adam Elliman got Cary off to a quick start by taking titles at 103 and 112 pounds. Ben Creed added the Imps’ third championship at 125 and Roger Terry picked up another one at 145.

At 160 pounds, Matt Colvard recorded a technical fall over his opponent and Juan Macias closed out the tournament with a pin at 285 to give Cary its sixth individual title.

But while the Imps continued their reign at the top of the league, Panther Creek made it known that the Tri-Nine is no longer a one-horse conference. Just two days after giving Cary all it could handle in a 38-21 dual loss, the Catamounts again challenged right down to the wire – this time coming up 18 points short at 221-203.

“I’m real proud of our guys,” Panther Creek coach Jon Armfield said. “Most guys wrestled about as good as they could in this tournament. And we were definitely on Cary’s heels in this thing – even more so than we were in the dual match.”

Panther Creek’s presence was clear in the finals as well, sending six wrestlers to the mat in the championship round and coming away with five titles.

Ben Elliott brought home the first-place trophy at 119 pounds and Joe Morrison and Patrick Santoro went back to back at 130 and 135. Jamey Drennen won the championship at 171 pounds and Sheridan Rucker narrowly edged Fuquay-Varina’s Soren Ferrell 4-3 at 189.

Perhaps the most exciting match of the finals ironically didn’t involve a wrestler from either Cary or Panther Creek. Apex’s Jeremy Overton and the Bengals’ Jahel Carter battled in a classic at 152 pounds.

Trailing 2-0 in the third period, Carter scored a 2-point takedown to pull even with just 14 seconds left in the match. But instead settling for overtime, Overton quickly rose to his feet at the sound of the whistle and scored an escape to retake a 1-point lead with eight ticks remaining.

The two fought furiously to the buzzer, but Overton was able to hold on for the victory. It was the senior’s second consecutive conference championship.

“When it got tied up, I knew I had to get that escape,” Overton said. “I knew I could win, and all I could think about was scoring as quickly as possible.”

Holly Springs finished third in the team points competition with 145 and had three wrestlers place second individually. Athens Drive came home fourth with 114 points and also placed three in the runner-up spot.

Green Hope’s Joey Baird and Nate Reynolds won the two remaining individual titles at 140 and 215 pounds respectively. As a team, the Falcons finished fifth with 88.5 points.