COLUMBIA – It was a difficult and intense battle at times, but in the end the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets won their third consecutive state wrestling championship over Lugoff-Elgin Demons at Dreher High School.
Fort Mill won 33-28 and only trailed once in the match at the start of the dual. The Jackets finished their dual season with a perfect 19-0 record.
“Lugoff is a great team,” said Fort Mill head coach Adam Marullo. “They gave us some matchup problems. I am a very lucky guy. I have great kids and a great staff.”
The team title is the 39th state team championship for Fort Mill High athletics and puts Marullo in rare company as just the sixth head coach in the school’s history to win multiple state titles. This is Fort Mill’s fourth state championship this academic year for the Jackets.
The third consecutive state title also came on former Fort Mill wrestler AJ Leitten’s 26th birthday. Leitten now has three individual state championships as a wrester for the Jackets and three dual state titles as an assistant coach for Fort Mill.
The match of the dual came at 157-pounds as backup Vincent D’Amico got a 15-14 decision that clinched a third consecutive state championship for Fort Mill putting them up 33-19 with two weight classes left. D’Amico was down 14-2 at one point before battling back for the win.
“D’Amico has been a backup all year, but he was ready to perform,” Marullo said. “All our guys were ready and that is because of our great assistant coaches. Our coaches work hard and our guys work their butts off every single day. They stepped up and did their job.”
The match started at 190-pounds, which was a good draw for the Jackets. Maurice Lawrence got the call at the weight class for Fort Mill to start the match. Lawrence got behind early in the match and couldn’t catch up as Lugoff-Elgin won 19-8 and started 4-0.
Fort Mill bounced back with a third period pin by Ted Ernst at 215 and then heavyweight Jonathan DaSilva won in 11 seconds with a quick first period pin.
The match rotated back to the lower weight classes at 106 and quickly became a back-and-forth battle as the Demons took the weight class by decision 13-7.
Fort Mill’s Luke Van Beynum (113) wrestled a hard match and came away with an 8-5 decision. The Jackets kept the hammer down at 120-pounds with Cole Wartinger getting a 19-7 major decision.
Tucker Gibson rallied in his match from down 8-6 to pick up a 9-8 win in the final seconds of the third period at 126-pounds, putting Fort Mill up 22-7.
“We had some big comebacks,” Marullo said. “I feel like we are always in every match. We work hard on our conditioning. That played a big role.”
Lugoff-Elgin came back at 132-pounds and picked up a first period pin to get back in the match.
Lincoln Green (138) got a 16-1 tech fall for the Jackets doubling their lead to 27-13 and Jayden Nguyen was able to weather a late storm for a 10-7 decision at 144-pounds.
Lugoff-Elgin wouldn’t go quietly as they got a third period pin at 150-pounds. They also picked up wins at 165 and 175-pounds.
Fort Mill now turns their attention to the individual Upper State and State tournaments over the next two weekends.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
