Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007

Jags quench thirst at Brook

Northwest wins Grapple at the Brook title

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Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette
Clarksburg’s Tanner Wrublik (front) seems to have control of Sherwood’s Alex Hakspiel in the 114-pound final at Saturday’s Grapple at the Brook tournament at Springbrook High in Silver Spring. Hakspiel pulled out of trouble though and won the match, 8-6.
Jason Edwards’s bid for a second tournament title of the season came up two matches short at the recent Hub Cup Invitational Wrestling Tournament. The Northwest wrestler fell to eventual champion Delon Agee of host North Hagerstown in the semifinals and had to settle for third place.

Still upset by that 4-3 setback, Edwards’s mindset heading into last weekend’s two-day, 15-team Grapple at the Brook Tournament was simple: Losing again was not an option.

‘‘That was the main fire behind this tournament,” said Edwards, who scored a 21-4 technical fall of Springbrook’s Jason Chan to claim the tournament’s 121-pound weight class and lead the Jaguars to the team title. ‘‘I didn’t wrestle my best at Hub Cup, so I had to come out there and show what I can really do.

‘‘I hope I see [Agee] again. It will be a good match if I see him again.”

Northwest as a whole appeared to have that same feeling of redemption. After opening the season by capturing Magruder’s Mad Mats Tournament in December, the Jaguars slipped to third place behind Damascus and Beall at the Hub Cup (Jan. 12-13), as five finalists walked away with one title.

They struggled once again during Saturday’s final round. Edwards and the undefeated Sean McCarty, who won at 127 pounds, were the only two Jaguars to claim championships, out of seven finalists. But Northwest built enough of a lead with 13 top-six finishers to hold off host Springbrook, 252.5-229.

Sherwood, with a tournament-best four champions, placed third with 154 points while Whitman (128 points), Watkins Mill (53), Wheaton (52), Clarksburg (50), Blair (43.5) and Gaithersburg (37) placed sixth, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th, respectively.

‘‘We established our goal,” Northwest coach Joe Vukovich said. ‘‘We were a little disappointed with our performance last weekend so we wanted to get some momentum back. Our goal was to win the tournament [but] we’ve still got a lot of work to do in practice.”

McCarty (19-0) pinned his way through to the title, his third this season, including a fall of Adam Dietrich of Frederick, 34 seconds into the final.

Michael Henning (105 pounds), Zach Staley (142), Paul Schoonmaker (162), David Larson (217) and William Bond (285) placed second in their respective weight classes.

Devils, Warriors rack up titles; Foreman wins again

Neither Springbrook nor Sherwood could outduel Northwest for the top spot in the team standings, but the two schools did combine for seven of the 14 individual crowns.

The Warriors were paced by their quartet of talented wrestlers in Alex Hakspiel (114), Andy Lowy (132), Rhett Beattie (137) and Steven Gamble (147), who scored wins over Clarksburg’s Tanner Wrublik, Mt. Hebron’s Tyler Girch, Gwynn Park’s Stephen Tyree and Smithsburg’s Brandon Knight, respectively.

Beattie (21-2) pinned his way to the final and then used a reversal and a takedown in the second period to open up an 8-3 lead against Tyree after trailing 2-0 early. He then scored another reversal with 1 minute, 36 seconds left in the match to take control for good in a 10-5 victory.

‘‘My dad and I talked about it a lot before the match — a lot of times when things aren’t going my way at the beginning, one of my biggest strengths is to keep going at a steady pace and hopefully my luck would change,” said Beattie. ‘‘I was fortunate. I got a couple of breaks.”

Lowy worked a 15-1 major decision against Girch and Gamble eked out a 2-1 decision over Knight.

Paul Milano (217) scored his first tournament victory of the season with an 11-3 win against Northwest’s Larson to pace Springbrook’s trio of winners. Jordan Dow won at 162 pounds and Joffrey Alcidor captured the 142-pound weight class with respective wins over Northwest’s Schoonmaker and Staley by the scores of 7-4 and 13-3.

‘‘All weekend they wrestled real hard,” said Blue Devils coach Rob Wendel, who had 10 wrestlers finish fourth or higher, including Mark Davis, who placed second at 191 pounds. ‘‘We got a great effort. I figured we’d be up there in the top five. We had a lead for a long time [but] lost some matches we could have won. The effort was outstanding. We have to work on positioning and things like that.”

Wheaton senior David Foreman (18-1) snared the county’s other title victory with a first-period pin over Reservoir’s Mike Newcomb in the 173-pound final. He captured the 191-pound title at the previous weekend’s Hub Cup tournament.

‘‘I guess there was a little animosity between us,” said Foreman, who secured the pin against Newcomb in 1:48. ‘‘When I came out, he was grinning on me. I don’t know what he was smiling at me about, but don’t smile at me if you don’t know me like that. Don’t think you’re going to win if you’ve never wrestled me in your life and I came out there and did what I had to do.”

Sharbaugh injured again

Defending state champion Will Sharbaugh of Whitman saw his frustrating season continue. Roughly a week after returning from injury and illness that sidelined him for most of the season, Sharbaugh injured his wrist and was forced to stop in his semifinal match against Chan at 121 pounds.

Vikings coach Andy Wetzel, who has already lost three-time state champion Eren Civan to injury, did not know the severity of the injury to Sharbaugh, who has wrestled in just six matches this season.

Sharbaugh, an All-Gazette first-team member a year ago, compiled a 37-0 record en route to county, region and state championships in 2005-06 at 103 pounds.

The team’s highest-placed finisher was Taylor Leighton, who took third at 154 pounds after falling to eventual champion Justin Hovermale of Smithsburg, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler.

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