ANDERSON – Although it was an individual tournament, the Indian Land Warriors dominated the competition and brought home five state champions, the most of any local team.
Indian Land brought the most local wresters to the tournament with 10 and was dominate over the two-day event held at the Anderson Civic Center. Of those 10 wrestlers, six made it to the 3A classification finals in their weight class and another three wrestled for third place as the Warriors placed nine of the 10 wresters they brought. In doing so, Indian Land set school records in the most number of wrestlers brought to the state finals, the most number of wrestlers placing at the state finals and the most number of wrestlers in the championship match at the state finals.
“We had a good weekend,” said Warriors’ head coach Leon Boulware. “I am happy to see they didn’t lose a lack of intensity after winning the dual state title. I am proud of how we wrestled.”
Warriors coming away with state titles were Drew Endres (106), Dylan Layton (120), Grant Witherspoon (145), Markeith Drakeford-Yegge (160) and Xavier Dreese (170). Indian Land’s Weston Nguyen (132) lost in the finals 7-6 to finish second.
In the 4A tournament, South Pointe brought seven wresters to the tournament with three of them getting to the finals. York had two finalists, one of which had to face off against South Pointe for a state title as the Cougars’ Jackson Rumfelt and South Pointe’s Spencer Cox went head-to-head for the 120-pound state title. Rumfelt beat Cox 11-0 to claim the state title at 120-pounds. York also had a state champion at 126-pounds in Kaleem Heard, who won 12-4 over Eastside’s Aden Leonard.
South Pointe had two second place finishers in the tournament in Cox and Matthew Belk at 138-pounds, but crowned a state champion at 195-pounds as Isaac Ekanem won 14-5 over Eastside’s Miles Scott.
Lancaster had just one wrester at the 4A tournament, but heavyweight Immanuel Bush made it to the finals and won with a 11-5 decision over Eastside’s Chase Barnes. Bush, who was in the last match of the evening and waited all day to wrestle, not finishing his match until 6:58 p.m., nearly three hours after the finals started was spent mentally and physically. Drained with emotions, Bush said he didn’t have any words for the accomplishment and could barely talk afterwards.
“I though it would be impossible,” he said. “But I had my city behind me, I had my coaches and team behind me.”
In the 5A tournament, both Rock Hill and Fort Mill had two state finalists with Bailey Wilkins (132) and Michael Ramirez (152) making it for the Bearcats and for the Jackets’ Joshua Strugeon (126) and Josh Cizmadia (160) reached the finals. Ramirez repeated as state champion with a 7-3 win over Byrnes’ Daniel Kitts. Having won last year, Ramirez said he was more prepared mentally this time around.
“The emotions and the build up test how you are able to push yourself mentally,” he said. “After last year I was able to prepare myself better.”
For Fort Mill’s Cizmadia, the preparation might have been too much. Cizmadia won 10-9 holding off a rally by Chapin’s Josh Green.
“I didn’t wrestle the match I wanted too,” he said. “I feel like after I got up 9-1, I took a premature victory lap in my head.”
Sturgeon finished second falling 11-1 to Fort Dorchester’s Matteo Vargo and Wilkins lost 5-2 to Byrnes’ David Hunsberger, who has beaten Wilkins a week earlier in the Upper State tournament. Wilkins was looking to win his fourth consecutive 5A state title, which would have made him the first wrester to ever win four consecutive titles at 5A, and the 21st wrester in state history to win four state titles.
Wilkins still made history despite not winning a state title at the tournament. He surpassed the South Carolina all-time career wins total of 261 in the semi-finals of the 132-pound weight class by beating Greenwood’s Jaquion Williams 11-4. The decision gave him win number 262 to surpass Chesterfield’s Ian Harper (2007-2010) on top of the all-time wins list. And while the win was important, not winning the state title he said was heartbreaking.
“My goal is to always be a state champion,” he said.
Wilkins, who has been wrestling since fifth grade, is still trying to decide on which college to wrestle at. His choices are Gardner-Webb, Newberry, The Citadel and Appalachian State.
Clover, Nation Ford, Northwestern and Chester all came up empty handed in bringing home a state champion, but did have several third-place finishers. Finishing third overall in the different classifications were Rock Hill’s Colton Smith (106), South Pointe’s Kemoni Reaves (113) and Shy’Quan Ferguson (152), Indian Land’s Max Yegge (113) and Raul Neil (182), Chester’s Teddy Murphy (285) and Clover’s Zach Blanchard (285).
Fourth place finishers included Fort Mill’s Sebastian Colon (113), Nation Ford’s Steven Johnson (145), South Pointe’s Alan Powell (126), Indian Land’s Clint Creech (126), York’s Luke Dickerson (132), and Chester’s LyTerrence Mills (170). Catawba Ridge had just one wrestler in the tournament in RJ Lincoln. Lincoln came up one round short of placing in the 3A tournament.
Mac Banks: mbanks@comporium.net, @MacBanksFM
