Both Fort Mill and Nation Ford wrestling teams split matches with their respective opponents in a tri-dual Saturday.
Fort Mill lost to River Bluff 39-32 and came back to beat Westwood 66-18. The Jackets are now 6-3 overall on the year. Nation Ford beat Gaffney 48-21 in their first Region 3-5A match of the year and lost to York 39-37. The Falcons now sit at 4-2 overall and 1-0 in the region.
The Jackets traveled to River Bluff High in Lexington for their tri-match. Fort Mill struggled in the match from the opening bout at 220-pounds. River Bluff won the first two matches to go up 12-0, before Fort Mill rallied to tie the match winning at 106-pounds and then 113-pounds.
Fort Mill’s Aidan Eubanks got a second period pin to put the Jackets on the board and then Sebastian Colon got a third period pin at 113-pounds to tie the match at 12-12. The win for Colon was his 100th career win making him the 23rd member of the Jackets’ 100-win club.
After the Colon pin, Fort Mill dropped three matches in a row to fall behind 24-11. The Jackets bounced back with a win at 138-pounds as Joshua Sturgeon got a second period pin. Fort Mill crept back in the match getting wins at 152-pounds from George Mandon and 160-pounds from Brian Kelley to put the score at 27-26 with River Bluff holding a slim lead. Fort Mill dropped two of the three final matches with the last win coming from Connor Montgomery getting a pin in the first period.
The Jackets bounced back against Westwood, but only wrestled four matches as they got nine wins from forfeits. Winning matches were Kelley, with a third period pin, and Henry Debbout, with a second period pin at 170-pounds. Winning by forfeit for the Jackets were Flynn Hyde (hwt.), Eubanks (106), Colon (113), McGuire Harms (120), Cayden Richard (126), Sturgeon (138), TJ Miller (145), Mandon (152), and Kannon Osborne (182).
Fort Mill has one more regular season match Jan. 26 at Nation Ford and needs to win it to stay in the playoff picture. Head coach Chris Brock said his youthfulness on the team is showing.
“We got a lot of young guys in the line-up who hasn’t been in a varsity situation before,” he said. “We are struggling a little. This is going to be a learning curve for them.”
Falcons split matches
Nation Ford opened their tri-match with Gaffney for their first region contest of the year.
Gaffney went up 6-0, before Nation Ford rattled off six consecutive wins to go up 30-6. Getting wins during the stretch was Mitchell Ladamus (113), Hanson Nguyen (120), Dalton Curtsinger (126), Ja’Derrick Foster (138), Caden Brandenburg (145), and Steven Johnson (152).
Gaffney picked up two wins around the middleweights, before Ryan deLeon won at 182-pounds, and both Clayton Rygol (220) and Alan Minarro (hwt.) closed the match out for the 48-21 win.
Against York, the match started at 120-pounds and saw York jump out to a 9-0 lead before Foster got a pin in the first period at 132-pounds.
York extended its lead at 138-pounds with a forfeit, but then Brandenburg got a decision at 145-pounds 12-11 and a pin by Johnson at 152-pounds tied the match at 15-15. Isaac Nivens would give the Falcons their first lead with a 14-3 major decision at 160-pounds, before another forfeit from Nation Ford would put York back in front.
DeLeon gave Nation Ford the lead again at 182-pounds with a first period pin, but the teams would trade the lead three more times before the end of the match. Rygol would get a pin at 220-pounds and Ladamus would get a pin at 113-pounds for Nation Ford, but it wasn’t enough as York squeezed out the win.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepspots.com, @fortprep
