Tunstall wrestling splits final home tri-meet

DRY FORK — Tunstall defeated George Washington for the second time in two weeks Wednesday, capitalizing on seven GW forfeits to come away with a 58-22 win in non-district wrestling action.

Despite crushing the Eagles (2-13), the Trojans (13-9) fell in the first match of the tri-meet 45-33 to Patrick County. Patrick County also won the second match of the night when it defeated GW 60-16.

Tunstall coach Randy Hunsicker was glad to see his team’s effort get results.

“I was happy with the way we wrestled,” Hunsicker said. “It was good to see our hard work pay off. We get better every week. We still have a long way to go, but we are getting better.”

The Eagles, who are suffering from a lack of wrestlers, were forced to forfeit the first scheduled bout to Tunstall’s Glenn Odum at 171 pounds.

The Trojans earned their next six points in the 189-pound match when Ryan Williams pinned Marques Tabb with 1:34 remaining in the first period.

“I thought Ryan Williams wrestled really well tonight,” Hunsicker said.

GW was forced to forfeit six of the next seven matches, with the lone exception coming at 112 pounds, when the Eagles’ Travis Betts pinned Jamison Canavan 41 seconds into the first period of their match.

Tunstall’s Aric Farrior beat Keith Boyd by an 8-0 decision in their 135-pound match. GW picked up an easy win thanks to a forfeit at 140 pounds, but the Trojans resumed the rout at 145 pounds when Matt Thornberry pinned Elliott Anderson with 11 seconds remaining in the first period.

The Eagles’ captains took the next two bouts to end the evening with consecutive wins. Richard Giggetts picked up the win at 152 pounds by pinning Dillon Phillips in 52 seconds and Hakeem Mease defeated Darren Richmond by a 9-1 decision.

Despite being outmanned, GW coach Rodney James feels his limited squad still has some quality wrestlers.

“I thought we wrestled great, the ones we have left anyway,” James said. “I am not disappointed. We have four new guys out there, we lost five to grades and we have one guy injured. Our captains are coming around, both of them. We moved them up weight classes for the experience tonight and they both won their matches.

“When I was young this would’ve gotten under my skin,” James said of his personnel problems. “I’ve been here for 32 years and seeing this program progress keeps me driving. We do good for the few people we have.”

Hunsicker looks forward to the day when GW has a full team again.

“I wish we would have gotten to wrestle more against GW,” he said. “It is disappointing for my kids who didn’t get to wrestle. I wish we could have wrestled them before the grade problems when we both had a full team.”