SHS outmans Sussex
Published 8:20 am Friday, January 23, 2009
COURTLAND—When your opponent shows up with just four wrestlers, it makes for an easy night. And so it went for Southampton High School in a 66-12, 15-minute win over Sussex Central in a non-district match Wednesday night.
To Sussex Central’s credit, the Tigers won two of the matches that were wrestled. At 112, Sussex Central’s Jonathon Scott, leading 6-0, pinned Jashaun Pope with 20 seconds left in the second period, to put the Tigers up 6-0 in the meet.
The next eight matches were either forfeits or double forfeits.
At 171, Calvin Givens of Sussex Central was dominating Jake Pittman 12-0 in the second period, then pinned him with 1:37 remaining. Southampton still led 42-12.
Southampton’s Deshawn Barner (7-3) took care of Arayan Feltz with a pin one minute into the first period to put the Indians up 48-12.
The final match wrestled pitted undefeated Calvin Stringfield of Southampton against Lamont Ellis at 215. Stringfield (5-0) wasted no time and pinned Ellis in 35 seconds giving the Indians a 54-12 lead.
Two more forfeits added 12 points to the Southampton tally.
The match was over so quickly that the referee said after the fact that it took him longer to drive to Southampton High School than the length of the match.
The Indians have now won two straight matches, having defeated King’s Fork High School 48-30 on Monday. The Bay Rivers District has been another matter; the Indians are 0-7 in conference play.
“It is one of the toughest districts in the state from top to bottom. We do our best to compete. They are definitely elite in the state of Virginia,” said Johnny McKeller, Southampton head coach.
According to McKeller, the Indians are not having as much trouble fielding a team as some other schools this season. The Indians have filled all the slots this season with the exception of 119 pounds. With wrestling a sport where you learn moves and repeat them over and over in practice, it is sometimes hard to keep wrestlers’ attention for an entire season. McKeller said he has tried to spice practice up a little bit.
“They have to be dedicated and come to practice and be willing to sacrifice to make weight. We try to make it as enjoyable as we can,” McKeller said. “We have days that instead of practicing hard, we will go in the weight room, or we will play a combative game, just something different so it doesn’t get stale because with this generation, you have to be on top of it.”
Southampton wrestles again on Thursday at Smithfield with several other BRD teams. The Indians will battle at Franklin at 1 p.m. on Feb. 3 in a make-up match.