Rapids battle to second in region

All season it was predicted that the Central Region team title would become a battle between James River and Hanover, so it was no surprise that the two teams finished just seven and a half points apart when the final tally hit the presses.

Hanover picked up the team title with a 222.5-215 decision, but the Rapids earned more first-place finishes than any other team with three. Brayden Manchester in the 119-pound weight class, Andy Svanda in the 160-pound weight class and Ryan Powis in the 285-pound weight class took home individual titles and will lead a contingent of six James River wrestlers to states this weekend.

Powis put the exclamation point on the tournament. Wrestling J.R. Tucker’s Nic Fuerte in the final match of the night, Powis took a 4-0 lead in the second round. A reversal by Fuerte put him on the board. Fuerte attempted an ankle pick in the waning moments of the round and momentum carried the two out. As the wrestlers reset at center mat, Powis, who recently signed papers to play football on scholarship at the U.S. Military Academy, pulled what looked like a perfect tackle move.

Powis took the down position with 25 seconds on the clock. As the referee’s whistle blew, Powis popped up and took Fuerte down. Momentum carried the two toward the boundary line, but Fuerte had little time to get his feet out to force a restart. Powis pinned Fuerte’s upper body outside the boundary line as their feet remained in bounds at the 17-second mark.

“It’s the only kind of shot I take; kind of a jab double,” Powis explained afterward. “Most heavy weights, if you go down to your knees … that’s a lot of weight on top of you, so I’m lucky enough to be quick enough and fast enough to go straight to the person.”

The move brought the crowd to their feet after two full days of wrestling made longer by the absence of district tournaments the week before.

Originally scheduled for Feb. 6 and 7, the district contests were postponed to Feb. 9 due to snowstorms. More snow and ice on the following Tuesday forced the cancellation of district meets and created a super regional tournament featuring all 32 teams in the Central Region.

Though not a perfect situation, most wrestlers were OK with the outcome.

“It’s a good confidence booster to first kind of get through the district. It’s always nice to be named district champion,” Powis said. “I know a lot of kids on our team, they had never been able to win [districts] and this was kind of their year, and that kind of hurt them, but it also helped them to say, ‘I’m going to prove it by doing so well at regionals.’”

“It’s easier to be confident when you know you’ve prepared as well as you could, and when you don’t have practices it’s tough to be confident that you’ve prepared as well as you could because you had days off where you were playing in the snow or sitting on the couch,” Svanda added. “That was definitely a drawback that was tough to overcome. I know for myself, after the first match and all this time off, it came back to me, and I said, ‘I haven’t had that much time off. I’m still good.’ I think a lot of kids realized that.”

Svanda appeared in top form as he took the mat for his 160-pound weight class match against Matoaca’s Xavier Edwards.

Both wrestlers tried ankle picks during the first round and it appeared that Edwards would get the first successful one late, but Svanda used Edwards’ downward dive to his advantage. He grabbed his opponent’s arm and went over the top for the take down and two-point advantage.

Svanda kept the advantage at the start of the second round, but had his tilt attempts blocked by a stiff-arm from Edwards. Svanda finally got his opponent flipped near the edge of the mat and pushed Edwards’ shoulders to the ground as Edwards struggled to get out of bounds. Svanda got the pin with 15.1 seconds on the clock.

“I knew I’d beaten him earlier in the season, so basically, I just had to know that I could beat him again. I just had to stay confident,” Svanda said. “I knew he’d probably improved throughout the season just like everybody does, but I had to assure myself that I’d improved just as much.”

Manchester’s win came on an 8-4 decision in the 119-pound weight class.

His opponent, Jonathan Gay of Hopewell, came back from a 3-0 deficit with a reversal at the end of the second round and a take down to start the third for a 3-3 tie.

Manchester pulled ahead on a reversal and take down. He added two more points on a near fall as he pulled his opponent down from the referee’s position and executed a quick flip.

“Coming in, I knew what he was good at,” Manchester said. “His defense on his feet was really good, so I had to figure out a way to get around that. Me and my practice partner [Jordan O’Donnell] worked on it, and we found out a shot that worked and that helped me out tonight.”

The top four in each weight class are hoping for no snow days this week as they prepare for Virginia High School League Group AAA competition.

“We’re going to have to wrestle at states like we did here,” Svanda said. “A big tendency when we wrestle states is to wrestle cautious … You’re afraid to do – not crazy stuff – but you’re afraid to score, take chances. At states you have to stay confident. You have to know what your capabilities are … You’ve got to be ready for each match; take them one by one.”

Local Central Region medalists were as follows: 112: 6. David Newill-Smith, Clover Hill; 119: 1. Brayden Manchester, James River; 5. Matt Metzger, Cosby; 125: 3. Jordan O’Donnell, James River; 130: 4. Blake Cooksey, Cosby; 6. Ryan Sams, Clover Hill; 135: John Peterson, Midlothian; 6. Christian Evers, Cosby; 140: Jordan Dibich, James River; 145: 3. Josh Wells, James River; 5. Matthew Bridgwater, Cosby; 152: 4. Jesse Wells, James River; 160: 1. Andy Svanda, James River; 171: 3. Austin Coburn, Cosby; 6. Connor Sweeney, James River; 215: 3. Mark Howard, Midlothian; 285: 1. Ryan Powis, James River.

Local team results were as follows: 2. James River, 215; 7. Cosby, 132; 12. Midlothian, 102; 20. Clover Hill, 61; 25. Manchester, 32; 29. Monacan, 12.50.