Spartans will wrestle in “Ring in the New Year” tournament at Heritage High School this week
The Salem and Glenvar High wrestlers are both entered in Holiday Tournaments over vacation with the Spartans competing in the “Ring in the New Year” tournament at Heritage High School this week. The tournament begins at 10 am today and runs through Friday.
Glenvar made the long trip down to Grundy High, alma mater of Glenvar coach Jason Cline, to compete in the Agie Skeens Memorial tournament on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. This year’s event featured 14 teams from across Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Glenvar was missing a couple of wrestlers due to illness but the Highlanders were able to fill 12 of 14 weight classes for the tournament and finish third. Host Grundy won the tournament and Ashe County High of North Carolina was runnerup.
“This tournament is always a good mid-season measure of how we are progressing as a team,” said Cline. “I’m pleased with where we are overall but we still have several areas to improve on as we head into the second half of the season. We put five kids into the finals and walked away with five champions, I’m certainly happy with that.”
Individually, Alan Vu had an outstanding tournament at 106, winning his first tournament championship against a very strong Ashe County wrestler. Mason Hylton won the 120 pound class with solid wins over his Grundy opponent in the semi-finals and a pin in the finals against an Ashe County wrestler to win his second Agie Skeens Championship.
River Smith dominated through the semi-finals in the 126 pound class. In the finals, he faced a returning state place winner from Grundy and was able to pick up a solid 7-3 decision to win his first ever Agie Skeens Championship.
At 150 Trey Lawrence picked up his 100th career win in the semi-finals, a huge accomplishment for a wrestling career. Trey faced a very physical state runner-up from Graham in the 150 pound class finals. The match was close the entire time with Trey picking up a 10-8 decision to win his first ever Agie Skeens Championship.
Jake Cline had another solid tournament at 157. Jake dominated a very talented Ashe County wrestler in the semi-finals and then faced a returning state place winner from Grundy in the 157 pound class finals. Jake was in control of the entire finals match and picked up a dominant 10-3 decision to win his second Agie Skeens Championship. Jake was also voted overall tournament Outstanding Wrestler for the two day event.
Joey Loder picked up a third place finish at 120 and Zach Adams(113), Chris Molina-Hernandez(165), Tony Miranda-Angeles(175), Wesley Heltzel(190) and Adam Waldron(285) all scored with fifth place finishes. Avery Steger was sixth at 132.
The Highlanders will return to the mats for the new Old Dominion Cup Duals at Roanoke College on January 7th. “This inaugural event brings together some of the toughest teams across Virginia to compete for the Old Dominion Cup,” said Cline. “It should be a really good event where we’ll face some of Virginia’s best wrestlers across all classifications” Some of the teams entered are Brook Point (5A), Skyline (3A), Riverbend (5A), Loudon County (4A), Riverheads (1A), Grundy (1A), Mountain View (5A), Grassfield (6A), Cox (5A), Alexandria City (6A), and Lord Botetourt (3A).