You can hardly blame Western Albemarle’s Drew Rakes for being pretty emotional after pulling off a 3-2 win in the Conference 29 championship.
Rakes was 16-17 on the year coming into the match, a junior who’d switched from basketball to wrestling during his sophomore year and he was facing off against a tough opponent, Monticello’s Ryan Smith, who was 18-2 coming into the title tilt. A late escape lifted Rakes past Smith in a hard-fought match.
“It’s just a lot of hard work and learning the lessons from the matches you lose and learning to overcome that,” Rakes said. “You’ve just got to find a way to win and it’s a lot of work that goes into it.”
Rakes’ effort was part of Western’s cruise to a team conference title, with the Warriors finishing with 242 points over second place Waynesboro’s 166.5 points to wrap up the conference championship.
Several other Western wrestlers made championship runs, with Jack Overstreet winning at 113 pounds, Zach Swales winning at 120, Will Davis winning at 145 pounds and Nate Riley winning at 182 pounds. Riley picked up pins in both the semifinals and the finals to stay unbeaten on the season. The senior pinned his finals opponent with six seconds left in the first period.
“I was just trying to be aggressive the entire time and keep a lot of pressure on him and make sure he couldn’t move,” Riley said.
Davis, a senior who is nearing 50 wins on the season, pinned his way to the 145-pound title. He actually bounced back from nearly pinning his opponent from Turner Ashby at the end of the first period before time ran out to come up with a pin with a minute left in the second period.
“That made me really happy that I almost had him pinned, that I got back points (in the first period),” Davis said. “It made me feel like I was in charge of the match, it gave me more confidence.”
Dre McCullough, Austin Beighley, Anthony Ramazani, Jabari Gomez and Jake Jackson all qualified for the finals and finished as conference runner-ups for the Warriors as part of a dominant day.
While the Warriors were cruising to championship, Fluvanna County’s Ian Dillon put together a strong performance at 160 pounds before falling 10-4 in a decision to Roger Graham, who was a state placer last year. By virtue of placing second, Dillon is one of several Fluvanna wrestlers advancing to the Region 3A West tournament.
“I’m excited, this is my third time going so it’s nothing new but I’ve got to prepare this week and get it done Saturday,” Dillon said.
Monticello had a pair of finalists in Smith and Christian Means who took home runner-up finishes and several other Monticello wrestlers battled on to the podium to earn region tournament berths. As a team, the Mustangs finished seventh.
