They started the night with a close win over a long-time rival, Louisa County. And after making quick work of Massaponox, Orange County fought off William Monroe late in the last match of the night to pick up three wins at home on Wednesday night.
“We’re coming along,” said Hornets coach John Kayajanian. “We’re trying to get better with time, get better in each match. Our younger wrestlers are getting better and that’s the main thing. It’s a long a season but we’re doing pretty well right now.”
The Hornets edged Louisa 49-33 on six pins coming from Hugh Morris, Michael Benner, Ryan Almond, Tyler Dodson, Conner Nave and Deon Hill at repesctive weight classes of 125, 135, 140, 160, 171, and 189 pounds. In a match between two of last year’s best in the Jefferson District and Region II at 119, Louisa’s Josh Scharf was able to pin Orange’s Phillip Coleman in the first period. Shane Burton at 112, Gavin Tingen at 130, Nate Whitmer at 215 and Patrick Henson at heavyweight all earned pinfalls for the Lions in the loss.
Orange then rolled against Massaponox, winning comfortably 61-18, highlighted by six pins again to go with a trio of techfalls and two forfeits.
In their last match of the night, the Hornets battled back and forth with William Monroe with the Greene Dragons winning at the top and bottom weight classes, but Orange taking everything in the middle to fuel at 43-30 victory.
Doug Sizemore earned a tech fall for Monroe at 189 and watched teammates Zach Cummings at 215 and Ben Sizemore at heavyweight net pinfalls to get off to a solid start. At the other end of the lineup, Kyle Weserker and Perrin Mills put together a pair of pins at 103 and 112 to go with Calvin Biesecker’s tech fall to round out the scoring for Monroe.
But Orange won each match starting between Jack Coleman at 130 to Nave at 171, picking up four pins and three tech falls which together netted 37 points. That paired with Coleman’s pin was enough to pull off a sweep on the night.
Monroe won two of its three matches, toping Massaponox with ease to start the night. The Dragons then racked up a 48-30 win against the Lions with seven pins coming from Mills, Jacob Hogsten at 130, Mario Maia at 135, Michael Thompson at 145, Ryan Roman at 171 and both Doug and Ben Sizemore.
“I thought we were going to come in here and compete and I thought we did that real well,” said Monroe coach Mike Sizemore, who began the wrestling program at the school in 2007. “Being in the fourth year of existence, I feel like we should be able to do that all year. That’s what were doing and that’s great because when you have an opportunity to compete, you’ve got an opportunity to win.”
Once again Scharf gave the Lions six points with a first period pin. Jonathan Bouza at 135 and Kephra Davis at 152 also earned pins. Whitmer and Brandon Young at 160 collected tech falls. Louisa was unable to participate in a third match of the night against Massaponox.
While the Lions are young and still retooling after winning back-to-back JD titles in ’07-’08 and ’08-’09, Louisa coach Dan Bono saw a lot of bright spots in his team’s two matches on the night.
“Gavin Tingen is a freshman and there are a lot of positives there,” Bono said. “Josh came out at 119 and got us two pins which was great. We’ve still got a lot to work on being so young, and a lot of guys are still working on getting down to weight so our lineup won’t look like it did today down the rest of the season.”
Louisa travels to Brentsville for a tournament on Friday. Monroe heads to Warren County on Saturday. Orange will participate at the Libery Duals on Saturday at Kettle Run High.
