By BRIAN J. FRENCH
Special to The Virginian-Pilot
The Great Bridge wrestling team took the advice of the Christmas standard and came home for the holidays. Their present: another team title in the Colon E. Baker Classic on Friday.
Four Wildcats - Austin Hurst (103 pounds), Louis Johnson (140), Joey Grainger (145) and Jared King (160) won individual titles for top-ranked Great Bridge, which defended its team championship from last year in their first appearance at their gym this season.
“We wrestled pretty well,” coach Norman Smith said. “The first round, we started slow, but we got better.”
The Wildcats scored 202 points to edge second-place Kempsville, which had 190. Hickory was third with 169.5, while Poquoson (153.5) and Tabb (103) rounded out the top five.
It had been 11 days since Great Bridge wrestled at the Beast of the East tournament in Delaware, its last event.
“That’s a lot of time, especially in the holidays when the guys get lazy on their diets,” Smith said. “We had to keep focused.”
The Chiefs had three champions - Sterling Briscoe (112), Frank Hruska (119) and Pierce Embry (189) - and trailed Great Bridge by just seven points before Friday’s finals.
Three pins, tech fall make Gillis MVP
Josh Gillis of Hickory was the tournament’s most valuable wrestler, barely breaking a sweat in his four matches.
He pinned Smithfield’s Tyrell Darden in the first round and Montville’s Ian Elliott in the quarterfinals, then scored a technical fall on Marcos Adams in the semifinals.
His 16-4 win against Colton Crabtree of Poquoson was the only one in which he had to wrestle the full six minutes.
Great Bridge’s Johnson wins a wild one
Great Bridge’s Louis Johnson was in a blink-and-you’ll-fall-behind final with Cody Silva of Poquoson at 140. The two combined for four lead changes and two ties in the first 3:30.
Then Johnson looked at the scoreboard and saw that neither the score (13-12 in Silva’s favor) nor the clock (less than five seconds left in the second period) were on his side. Johnson caught Silva for a reversal, then got one of his shoulders down long enough to pick up two back points, and just like that, he was up 16-13 and in control.
Johnson rode him out in the third period and won 18-13.
“I knew I had to work quickly,” Johnson said. “We work on those tight scenarios in the wrestling room. You either score or you lay there, and that’s it.”
Added Smith: “He’s always wide open. You never know what you’re going to get with him.”
Former Wildcat Strickland has Poquoson on the move
Poquoson has a history of being one of Virginia’s top wrestling programs, winning nine state team championships. So when the Islanders needed a coach to get them back to that level, they knew where to look.
Mark Strickland, who won two state titles at Great Bridge and was an NCAA placewinner in for Old Dominion, took over at Poquoson last season.
They finished “nearly at the bottom” at last year’s tournament, but they had five finalists on their way to a fourth-place finish Friday.
“I was impressed,” Strickland said. “This is a building phase we’re in. Poquoson is like Great Bridge, a community rich in support for wrestling. There’s big expectations wherever we go.”
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