MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The University High wrestling team wasn’t the first in line to attend the brand new state dual meet on Feb. 1, but that doesn’t matter at this point — the Hawks will be attending the set of matches.
The original Region I representative and one of the best teams in the state, Wheeling Park, stepped away from the opportunity, bringing with it a toss-up between UHS and John Marshall.
The Hawks upended the Monarchs on Jan. 8, sealing their bid into the tournament. As the first-ever event, there will certainly be road bumps to smooth out, including how players are matched up. The committee in charge has decided to skip a seeded bracket and, instead, choose matchups at random.
“We’ll know by Sunday night or Monday morning what the bracket will be,” UHS coach Ken Maisel said. “There’s going to be kinks to work out. It’s at the Greenbrier, which is nice, but that poses its own problems like hotel costs and little things like how you’re now allowed to walk around the Greenbrier in athletic gear. Tell a 16-year-old that. There are some challenges, but they’ll overcome [them].
“From a wrestling standpoint, we’re going to try and win it. The best two teams in the state are probably Wheeling Park and Parkersburg South, and neither will be there. So, we’ll see how we stack up. Don’t get me wrong, the three other teams can certainly beat us — Parkersburg already has — so we can easily go in there and win it or go in and not win a match.”
The other teams UHS will face are Parkersburg (Region IV), St. Albans (Region III) and Spring Mills (Region II). The Big Reds are in a similar situation as the Hawks with the 2019 state champion Parkersburg South opting out of the duals, allowing PHS to take on Huntington for the bid. Further, St. Albans won their spot against Greenbrier East, while Spring Mills won out over opponents.
There are plenty of key Hawks grapplers to keep an eye on, including Jace Stockett, Elijah Wellings-Osha, Josh Sanders, Dakota Hagedorn and, possibly, Jake Staud. Staud, a Division I signee with West Point, has been recovering from an ankle sprain.
“It’s his goal to wrestle in [this event],” Maisel said. “It’s taking a long time. We’ll see if it happens.”
Stockett has been making waves in 126 weight brackets this season, most recently placing second at OVACs, as have Sanders (220) and Hagedorn (152) who placed 4th and 3rd, respectively, in their brackets at the conference tournament. But one wrestler who’s impressed Maisel over the season is Wellings-Osha, a sophomore who has racked up a couple of solid placements, including 4th at the Winners Choice Tournament Jan. 10-11 and an 8-0, first-place run at the Wheeling Park duals Dec. 27-28.
But even with a few top wrestlers, Maisel just wants each individual to do their job. Even if that means taking a loss while attempting to chop points off an opponent’s total.
“In a dual meet setting, everyone needs to do their job,” he said. “That may be going out and get a pin or not get pinned. We tell our guys, ‘Look if you’re wrestling a guy that much better than you, and you can make them get a major decision you [cut] those two points.’ ”
Coming off what Maisel thinks was the Hawks’ worst match of the year, a loss to Wheeling Park on Wednesday, Maisel and the Hawks have two more meets before the state duals: Southern Garrett (Md.) on Monday and South Harrison two days later for senior night.
“I think it’s a similar type of scene, Southern Garrett is going to be tough to beat. They’re always good,” Maisel said. “But it’s not out of the realm of possibility we can beat them. South Harrison may be a single-A team, but they’ve got good kids. We want to go out and score as many points to prepare ourselves for [the duals].”
