MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The University High wrestling team dominated South Harrison in its final home match of the season, 53-15, on Wednesday.
The victory also came on Senior Night and the seniors healthy enough to wrestle picked up big individual wins.
The sixth-ranked 126-pounder Jace Stockett (29-5) was the first senior to pick up a win, defeating Preston Peck in a 12-2 major decision.
Joey Gidley (29-11) followed a few matches later with a pin of Michael Ratcliff just 58 seconds into the match. No. 4 Josh Sanders (34-6) followed shortly after with a fall of his own, pinning Gaven Valazquez at the 3:04 mark.
Other winners included No. 6 Corbin Turney (Fall at 1:52), Will Angelozzi (forfeit), Grant Oxley (5-1 decision), Dom Parker (Fall at 0:42), Dakota Hagedorn (Tech Fall), Shahid Hayward (Fall at 4:58), Elijah Wellings-Osha (Tech Fall) and Ben Tower (Fall at 1:58).
“I don’t know about tonight, but Monday night we wrestled Southern Garrett (Md.) the best we’ve ever wrestled,” UHS coach Ken Maisel said. “So that is going to give us some momentum going into the rest of the year.”
The blowout is the final step in preparation for the first-ever state duals this weekend.
UHS is attending as the Region I representative and will face Parkersburg High, St. Albans and Spring Mills.
Following the state duals, UHS will travel to No. 4 Huntington on Monday for a dual meet and then will take part in regionals.
“Hopefully they get some confidence,” Maisel said of the state duals. “Some of our guys got the chance to do some things they normally may not get to because of the competition [tonight]. I don’t think it hurts to have a little confidence going in.”
As for his seniors closing the books on their final home match, Maisel is thankful for the group that stuck it out and never gave up.
“It started when they were in middle school,” he said. “Wrestling has a lot of quitters, and these guys stuck with it from the time they were freshmen and not very good to now. It’s a good message to everybody that says, ‘Hey, stick with us because eventually, you’ll be good regardless of where you are now.’ They’re a great bunch of kids.”
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