THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502190226
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL LEFFLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Great Bridge broke the scoring record in rolling to its 11th consecutive Southeastern District wrestling championship Saturday night.
The Wildcats, cheered on by a capacity crowd in the Great Bridge gym, racked up 269 points. The previous tournament record of 268 was posted by Great Bridge in 1992.
Western Branch was runner-up with 188 1/2, followed by Oscar Smith (127 1/2), Deep Creek (125), Indian River (90), Churchland (76), Wilson (60) and Norcom (13 1/2).
Great Bridge qualified its entire team for the Eastern Region tournament and claimed seven individual championships.
Western Branch won four titles and will advance 11 to the regional. Oscar Smith and Churchland each had one champion.
``I was surprised we had broken the scoring record,'' Great Bridge coach Steve Martin said. ``We pulled a couple of upsets in the finals but then we lost a few I had been hoping to win.''
Western Branch coach Terry Perdew was elated with his four champions but still found time to praise Great Bridge.
``You know this is the seventh year in a row our team has finished second to Great Bridge. I thought we were closing the gap these last few years, but this Great Bridge team just might be the best they've had.''
While most of the earlier matches in the two-day tournament went as expected, the final bouts produced some surprises.
Western Branch's No. 2 seed, Lee Butler, upended Great Bridge top-seed Aaron Anton, 5-2, in the 103-pound bout.
At 118, second-seeded Tiree Murphy of Churchland defeated No. 1 seed Richard Slocumb of Western Branch, 9-6. It was the first district title for a Trucker since 1988.
Great Bridge's Billy Allred, the No. 1 seed at 160, lost by default to Western Branch's Cory Bauswell. It was only the second loss in 37 matches for Allred this year.
Joey Guth of Great Bridge claimed a 10-9 decision over Deep Creek's Ryan Baker, the defending district champ and top seed at 171.
At 189, the Wildcats' Josh Fannon defeated top-seeded Anwar Sparrow of Oscar Smith, 5-4.
The other Great Bridge winners were 112-pounder Bruce Fowler, Carl Perry at 125, Travis Woodhouse at 130, Aaron Beatson at 135 and John Young at 140. It was the second district title in a row for Beatson, 28-1 for the season. He won the 125 title last year.
Western Branch's Sean Sanderlin dethroned Great Bridge's Michael Harper in the 145 final. Sanderlin, top seeded with a record now at 28-1, called it ``a match I really wanted to win.''
He pinned Harper in 2:46.
Sanderlin's undefeated teammate, Byron Tucker, upped his record to 30-0 on a technical fall over Great Bridge's Chris Basnight at 5:11.
Prior to the match, the soft-spoken Tucker, a two-time Central Region champion before transferring to Western Branch, said he expected ``an interesting bout.''
It was his 90th career win.
Oscar Smith's winner was 275-pounder Rafael Butts, who defeated No. 3 seed Shawn Curl of Great Bridge, 11-9.
The top four finishers at each weight qualified for the regional. Deep Creek will be sending 10, Indian River six, Oscar Smith six, Wilson three and Churchland three. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Second-seeded Tiree Murphy of Churchland, left, takes down and goes
on to defeat No. 1 seed Richard Slocumb of Western Branch, 9-6, at
118 in the Southeastern District wrestling championships.
by CNB