The Langley High wrestling team finished a solid ninth place at last weekend’s Northern Region championships meet, held Feb. 11-12 at Fairfax High School.
The Saxons, under head coach Jeff Mye, scored 58 total points. The team champion was Robinson, which captured its first region crown since 1991. The Rams finished with 260.50 points, finishing ahead of second place and defending region champion Westfield (208). South County (118) finished third place, while Annandale (92) and Hayfield (78) finished fourth and fifth places, respectively, at the 30-team event.
Finishing sixth through 10th place were Lee High (69), Mount Vernon (65), Edison (62), the Saxons and Lake Braddock (54.50). Local school McLean High, under head coach Ken Jackson, tallied 23 team points for a 22nd place overall finish.
Robinson Secondary’s Jack Bass, the 125-weight class champion, was named the region tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler.
Centreville High, which finished 18th place in the team standings, accepted the Sportsmanship Award trophy during brief post meet ceremonies on Saturday night.
Neither Langley nor McLean had any wrestlers reach Saturday evening’s finals. Even so, the Saxons saw two wrestlers earn top six place finishes, while the Highlanders had one.
For Langley, 13-5 in team dual meets during the regular season, both Matt Wilson (152 weight class) and Jay Ives (135) earned fourth place individual finishes. The top four wrestlers in each weight class automatically advanced to this weekend’s Virginia State AAA championships. The top six finishers earned medals. McLean’s Austin Miller finished sixth place at 125 weight class.
Wilson, in the 152 bracket, won his first two matches, defeating Wakefield High’s Michael Rios by first period pin in his first match before defeating Oakton’s Matt Norterangelo by major decision, 15-5, in his second match.
Wilson was then edged by Mount Vernon’s Trey McClure, 7-6, in the semifinals to fall into the loser’s bracket. There, he bested Jonathan Faul of Stone Bridge by major decision, 16-6. That put him into the consolation finals for third place where Wilson lost to Westfield High’s Harry Van Trees, 8-2, to finish fourth.
Ives, in the 135 tournament, earned a second period pin win over Stuart High’s Ameer Ghousheh in his first match, then followed that up with a 9-4 decision win over Westfield’s Frank Aiello. Next, in a semifinals match, Ives lost, 8-4, to eventual champion Omar Maknassi of T.C. Williams to fall into the loser’s bracket. Ives bounced back with a 13-8 win over Annandale’s Jack Johnson to advance to the match for third place. There, Ives fell 9-2 to Lake Braddock’s Rori Renzi.
McLean’s Miller, at 125 division, won matches over Centreville’s Jerry Cowman by pin and Yorktown’s Danilo Downing, 5-1, before losing to eventual champion Bass of Robinson by major decision to fall into the loser’s bracket. Miller ultimately finished sixth overall following a loss to Hayfield’s Sahid Kargbo, 8-5, in the match for fifth place.
The Virginia State AAA championships will take place this Friday and Saturday (Feb. 18-19) at Robinson Secondary.