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Wrestlers place at tourney

By Staff | Jan 20, 2010

Winner’s Choice place winners

Tyler Consolidated’s Silver Knight wrestlers put in a full week of matches this week, with a tri-match at home hosting Cameron and St. Marys and at the Winner’s Choice Tournament in Fairmont over the weekend.

On Jan. 13 a full slate of wrestling was on the card at Tyler Consolidated as Cameron and St. Marys came to town, both with state ranked and experienced wrestlers on the mat.

Cameron came out as the winner on the evening, defeating both St. Marys and the Knights. Consolidated fell to both of their visitors, 46-12 to Cameron and 37-36 to St. Marys.

Two home town wrestlers won both their matches on the evening, John Brosky and John Epsilantis. Brosky, at 112 and Epsilantis at 285 were the only two Knight wrestlers to go 2-0 on the evening.

Calvin McCune and Nate Taylor each got a win for the day.

At the Winners Choice Tournament in Fairmont, sixty-six teams competed for the top spot, with the majority of them being from class AAA schools in West Virginia, along with several schools from Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The team from Ripley wrestled their way to the top spot at days end, accumulating 207 team points to take the championship. Point Pleasant finished second with 193 and Berkley Springs came in third with 170 team points.

Tyler Consolidated’s wrestlers put on a fine performance at the tournament as well, placing 19th overall in the field of team competition.

Senior Nate Taylor earned a fourth place spot on the podium when all was said and done. Wrestling at 152, Taylor came into the tournament ranked third in the State in class A/AA in the 152 weight class. He pinned his first two opponents at the tournament and then was able to get a win 3-2 with a takedown of University’s Phil King.

He then fell to Parkersburg’s Chad Morrison, 3-1, but won the next match 8-4 to put him back up in the top bracket facing King once again. In a very close match, King took the win this time, leaving Taylor finishing up a very respectable fourth place overall.

In the 160 lb. weight class, senior Brody Northcraft started off the tournament with a 7-4 loss to Josh Vance of Riverside, putting him in the bottom bracket.

He wrestled his way through the bracket by defeating his next three opponents by falls. A loss in triple-overtime to Matt Aldridge of Keyser sent the Tyler Consolidated wrestler to challenge for seventh and/or eighth place. Falling 2-0 to Adam Rutter of Ripley, placed Northcraft in eighth place for the tournament.

His finish on the podium makes history for Consolidated’s wrestling program, making him the first wrestler ever to place all four years of high school as a place winner at the Winner’s Choice Tournament.

At 171 lbs., Silver Knight Brandon Griimes had a tough, but good tournament, wrestling his way to a sixth place finish overall. He had four pins and then fell to the number four class A/AA wrestler in the state, Austin McBeath of Point Pleasant, 6-2 and 4-3. A loss to University’s Kris Langsford 5-2, finished the tournament for Grimes.

The Knights Adam Cross and Epsilantis each won two matches for Consolidated and Brosky, Joe Henthorn and McCune each had a win on the day.

The Silver Knight wrestlers will be heading to the OVAC wrestling tournament this weekend and expect to do good things.