ROCK HILL – The Fort Mill Yellow Jackets wrestling team opened their season with a dominating performance over the South Pointe Stallions with a 53-15 win.
The Jackets come into the 2023-2024 season ranked second in 5A behind Summerville, who they beat last season for the 5A state title.
Fort Mill jumped out to a 26-0 lead over South Pointe and never looked back as new head coach Adam Marullo picked up his first win at the helm of the program. Marullo said he didn’t give it much thought about it being his first match as head coach until the action had already started.
“It was nice to get the first win,” he said. “I am very proud of the guys, but we still have plenty of work to do.”
The match started at 113-pounds as Jacob Nally got things rolling with a first period pin. Grayson Thom followed that with a first period pin at 120-pounds and Lincoln Greene won 11-0 at 126-pounds to put Fort Mill up early.
At 132-pounds, Tucker Gibson won 17-4 to get a major and then Logan Shope got a first period pin at 138-pounds to give Fort Mill the 26-0 lead.
Fort Mill split the next four matches with Cade Simpson winning at 150-pounds by a 5-4 decision and Jack Kadish getting a first period pin at 165-pounds to put the score at 35-9.
The Jackets then won three of the next four to seal the match as Theodore Ernst won by first period pin at 175-pounds and Sebastian Villatoro won 6-3 at 190-pounds. Joseph Richardson closed out the match for Fort Mill as he won at 215-pounds 9-6 and Luke Van Beynum would get a forfeit win at 106-pounds in the last match of the dual.
Fort Mill will head to Catawba Ridge to participate in the Venom Duals Wednesday, Nov. 29 wrestling in three matches.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
