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Flucos complete JD sweep

Granted there isn’t a Region II berth awarded to the regular season champion in the Jefferson District when it comes to wrestling. But by fighting off Orange County and then taking down Charlottesville and out-of-district participant Covenant at a quad meet on Wednesday night, Fluvanna County completed a regular season sweep of the JD.

The Flucos were able pick up 54-21 wins over both Charlottesville and Covenant, but their first match of the night was a nail baiter with Fluvanna coming out on top by one point, 40-39.

“The Orange kids really made it tough by picking up a couple of pins where we were hoping we could survive without a pin,” said Fluvanna assistant coach Paul Chirico. “They’ve got a young team and a lot of spunk and they wrestle well.”

Three different Flucos won all three of their matches including Wilie Crawford, Christian Chirico, Logan Walls, and David Harlow.

“David’s a great story and has come along so much since he was a freshman,” Paul Chirico said. “He’s probably our most improved wrestler on our team. His confidence has grown and right now he’s the second seed in the district (at 285 pounds).”

Justin Zimmerman also had a strong outing with his 2-1 performance.

Fluvanna finished its regular season with a perfect 6-0 record against all of its district opponents. This is just the fourth year that the Fluco’s have had a wrestling program.

After just falling short against Fluvanna, Orange rebounded by knocking off both Charlottesville and Covenant. The Hornets took down the Black Knights 35-29 before going on to beat the Eagles 56-19.

“We gave Fluvanna a great match,” said Orange coach John Kayajanian. “We came up one point short but that’s okay, we’re a real young team that’s getting better. I’m just hoping the weather holds up so we can have a tournament.”

Whether or not there is a tournament will be up to Mother Nature. The event was originially slated to take place on Saturday but all weekend events have been canceled because of the looming snow storm. JD athletic directors are hoping that the tournament can be moved to Monday or Tuesday, but weather still may be a factor.

After the quad meet was completed, all of the coachs from the JD met to put together a contingency plan. With the strong possibility of the tournament being cancelled outright, the top four wrestlers from each weight class as voted by the coaches will advance to the Region II tournament which is scheduled for February 13th.

Host Charlottesville picked up a non-district win over Covenant 52-30. Shiruna and Shafick Ntenda each had multiple victories for the Black Knights as did Chris Grant.

And while Covenant had a tough night as a team on the mat, a pair of Eagles each won all of their matches. Josiah Zodhiates at 130 and Nathan Sieminski at 125 won three times each.

Covenant’s postseason does not begin for another week. The VIC tournament begins on February 13th.

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