Sunday, February 28, 2010

National Prep Tournament

Woodberry qualified five wrestlers for the National Prep Tournament: Josh Trudgeon, Duke Pickett, Taylor Reuss, Cary Jones, and Chad Kolumber.
It was a great experience for the Tigers, as all wrestlers got at least one win. Woodberry placed 26th out ouf about 150 teams. Josh went 1-2, with a dominant 16-1 win by technical fall in the first round. Josh was seconds away from winning his last match.
Taylor Reuss was one win away from placing at Nationals. He went 3-2, with 3 hard-fought wins and two extremely close losses in matches that could have easily gone Taylor’s way.
Cary went 2-2, with a huge win over a wrestler from Episcopal High School who had beaten Cary 3 times over the past 2 years.

Chad had tough draw in the tournament, and went 1-2, losing matches to the second- and eighth-place winners. Chad finished his Woodberry wrestling career competing at the highest level possible.
Duke Pickett had an outstanding tournament. Entering the tournament as the second seed, Duke worked his way to the finals upsetting the second seed in the semifinals by a score of 5-0. In the finals Duke lost a tough and hard-fought match to Evan Henderson from the Kiski School.

Duke ended the season with a 41-3 record and represented the team’s values throughout the season. Duke also earned the weekly Hammer Award for his tough performance.