Wrestling wins 20th straight
Published 11:15 am Thursday, January 24, 2019
Union Pines and Ragsdale didn’t make it easy, but Davie’s wrestling team managed to go 4-0 in a tournament in Jamestown on Jan. 12.
The War Eagles overpowered Page (60-18) and Ledford (53-24). They had their hands full with Union Pines (37-33), and Ragsdale showed some staying power in a 35-21 decision.
Union Pines is a 3-A school out of Cameron. The Vikings are 35-5 with a similar rout of Page (61-15). One of their losses was 39-31 to Lake Norman, and Davie edged LN 180.5-171 in the Davie Invitational on Nov. 17.
The Vikings certainly had Davie on the ropes. Adam Szewczyk (8-3 decision at 120), Bill Trader (5-0 decision at 126) and Collin Bailey (9-1 major decision at 138) got Davie off to a 10-6 lead, but Union Pines owned the 145-170 weight classes to go in front 27-10.
“They’re pretty good,” coach Buddy Lowery said. “They’ve been good in the past. It was an exciting one.”
But Davie bowed up from 182-113 and dodged defeat. Five dauntless studs – Matthew King (first-period pin at 182), Jesus Olmedo (first-period pin at 220), Andy Flores (first-period pin at 285), Cody Taylor (first-period pin at 106) and JT Richards (6-2 decision at 113) – did the heavy lifting.
“They were beating the fool out of us,” Lowery said. “(King, Olmedo, Flores, Taylor and Richards) have been the leaders all year. That’s four seniors (the exception being freshman Richards) that don’t like losing.”
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The 4-A Ragsdale Tigers, who are 24-4, seized leads of 9-0 and 21-14.
“They’re good,” Lowery said. “They wrestled against Northwest Guilford a week ago, and Northwest beat them in the last match (32-29).”
A huge momentum swing, a 21-0 run at the end, flowed from Olmedo (decision), Flores (decision), Taylor (decision), Richards (forfeit) and Szewczyk (pin).
“We wrestled with intensity and had some step up,” Lowery said.
For the day, Davie got 4-0 efforts from Taylor, Richards, Szewczyk, King, Olmedo and Flores. Going 3-1 were Trader, Bailey, Matthew Downey and Isaac Webb. Josh Chaffin went 1-1 before leaving with an injury.
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In Central Piedmont Conference action at Davie on Jan. 18, the War Eagles buried East Forsyth 67-9.
Szewczyk, Chaffin and Peyton Sherrill, who made a nice splash in his return from a long stint on the disabled list, had the pins. King and Flores had major and minor decisions, respectively, as Davie (29-2, 3-0 CPC) stretched its winning streak to 20. East handed forfeits to seven War Eagles.
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Davie has a ton of impressive individual records. Olmedo is 42-0 with 27 pins. Richards is 40-3 with a 10-match winning streak. Taylor is 38-2 with a 29 win streak. King is 38-5 with a 25 win streak. Trader is 32-6, Bailey 31-9, Chaffin 29-8, Webb 29-13, Flores 28-4 and Szewczyk 27-7. Flores is enjoying a 19-1 run, the loss coming in overtime. Szewczyk has won 10 straight.
Injured Jack Jarvis is 22-11. Downey is 11-5 in spot duty.