Wheeling Park Captures Regional Wrestling Title | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo by Kim North
Wheeling Park’s Adam Carman, right, grapples during Saturday’s regional championships at John Marshall. The Patriots walked away with the regional title.

MOUNDSVILLE — Wheeling Park regained its dominance of the West Virginia Class AAA Region I wrestling tournament Saturday inside the John Marshall Field House.

The Patriots, who were runnersup to University last winter, piled up 277.5 points to the Hawks 248. The winners tallied most of those points with a torrid semifinal round when they advanced 12 individuals to the finals.

John Marshall finished third with 200 points. Brooke tied for fifth with Morgantown as both had 79.

Wheeling Park, which was second in the state last season to Parkersburg South, qualified 13 of 14 individuals, with eight of them going as regional champions.

“We had a couple of guys that avenged losses from earlier in the year, but Hunter Means was probably the biggest,” Wheeling Park head coach Brian Leggett said.

“It’s a weird environment here because it’s an 8-man bracket and you don’t get a chance for many bonus points. Some of our guys only wrestled two matches, but everything kind of fell into place for us today,” he said. “To get a win over a kid that is that highly ranked in the state was huge, especially when it was the last match of the day.”

He was referring to the freshman’s pin over top-seeded Dyllan Haseleu.

Other Patriots winning titles were freshman Noah White (106), sophomore Adam Carman (113), and seniors Nate Shelek (132), Gabe Carman (160), Hunter Nixon (182) and junior Erick Brothers Jr. (220), who is seeking his third state crown.

Finishing second were Jack Lowe (126), Bradyn Lucas (138), Cody Taggart (145), Quinton Velas (152) and Jameson Maynard (170).

John Marshall had a regional champ in junior Ethan Cook (120), while Harding Kaden (113) and Carl Cochran (132) finished second.

Overall, the Monarchs are taking 11 to Huntington.

“This will be Ethan’s third time going to state,” John Marshall head coach Ryan Asbury said. “He has had a good season and is a kid that works really hard every day.”

The state tournament is March 3-5 inside Mountain Health Arena in Huntington.

Brooke’s Tyler Wise (195) was a regional runnerup and was one of three Bruins to advance to the state tournament.

“Tyler is a product of his environment. He’s been wrestling all of his life.”

Class A/AA

FAIRMONT ­– Twenty-three Ohio Valley wrestlers punched their tickets to the 75th annual West Virginia Class A-AA state tournament by placing in the top four of their weight classes Saturday.

Oak Glen, which finished third in the team standings with 163 points, leads the way with eight, while Cameron, which was right behind the Golden Bears with 155, had seven and Tyler Consolidated five. Magnolia with two and Weir with one round out the qualifiers.

The state tournament will be held inside Mountain Health Arena in Huntington on March 3-5.

Cameron and Oak Glen both had two champions as the Dragonsá Ian Bush (182) and Gunnar Bryan (285) stood atop the awards podium. Bush is looking for his third title.

Cameron also had four runnersup in Slaton Pettit (106), Ashton Hoge (126), Payton Neely (138) and Adam Angel (170).

The Golden Bears headed south as regional titlists include Logan Davis (106) and Clayton Lamb (120). Both were third a year ago.

Hayden Lamb (113) and Braxton Dlugopolski (152) were regional runnersup.

Tyler Consolidated had a trio of runnersup in Trenton Huffman (160), Sean Winfrey (182) and Case Landis (220).