By J.J. Totaro
Sterling (Feb. 17, 2008) – This year’s AA Dulles district wrestling tournaments was one of the most unusual ever and one that will not soon be forgotten. From the coaches meeting to the finals, the tournament was filled with twists and turns, some usually only found in a horror story or suspense drama.
Thursday night brought bad news for numerous teams and their wrestlers: at 135 Kenton Perez (Loudoun County) would be scratched from the tournament due to injury; as would Nick Zurlo (Heritage), who broke his thumb, and Freedom’s Ali Assadi. Even more changes would happen, as Loudoun County would be forced to put in a replacement at 160. No weight class was affected more than 189, which saw its No. 2 seed Mike Girolami (BW) drop out early in the week to mononucleosis, to be replaced by a teammate, and also saw the No. 4 seed Bobby Cockerille of Park View forfeit to a broken ankle on Thursday. This left 189 open for the taking, and wrestlers took advantage.
The twists and turns did not stop there, as the first rounds saw some impressive and unexpected matches. At 125, Tommy Philbrick (Freedom) was able to upset the No. 3 seed by an 8-0 margin, and eventually went on to wrestle in the finals. Anthony Lupetaliaami (Freedom) did the same at 130.
The next few weight classes saw six seeds knocking off the No. 3 seeds, ruining many of the expected semifinal matchups.: at 135 Alec Scharf (Broad Run) upset Eric Dean (Park View) to knock Dean into the consolation bracket, and teammate George Caras (Broad Run) did the same at 140 ousting Nik Abi-Najm (Briar Woods). Billy Wisman (Heritage) would do the same at 152 defeating Joseph Sheptock (Freedom), to move into the semi-finals.
The semi-finals held their own bag of surprises, one of the biggest of which was Stephen Penna (Park View) defeating Jo Jo Koenig (Potomac Falls) 12-6 to move to the finals. Koenig had won the earlier match-up this year, but it would be Penna wrestling T.J. Julia (Briar Woods) for a championship. Tom Philbrick would upset again in the semis defeating Chris Cowne (Heritage) 6-4, as Thomas Hulcher (Briar Woods) won a close and hard fought match against Sean Scales (Park View) 6-5 to move to the finals. George Caras (Broad Run) would keep the upsets alive as he defeated Josh Belin (Potomac Falls) 8-1 to make he and Philbrick the only two No. 6 seeds to make it to the finals.
The finals would be one for the ages as huge inter-district rivalries would flare and come down to the wire.
At 103 David Orr (Broad Run) and Fritz Hoffman (Potomac Falls) would face off. Orr would win the battle between the two seniors, 13-5.
The 112-weight class would be one of the best matches all night as Stephen Penna (Park View) gave TJ Julia (Briar Woods) almost more than he could handle. With a match that had gone back and forth for five minutes, Julia was able to win it 9-8 in the last 15 seconds.
The ultimate match of the night was Justin Smith (Heritage) and Paul Rowane (Potomac Falls). Both men are ranked in the state at 119, both have district championships and they were facing off again. In the past Rowane had taken each match, but Saturday night had something else in store as Smith wrestled a near perfect match to defeat Rowane 3-0. This championship makes Smith eligible to be a 4-time Dulles district champion, if he were to win next year.
At 140, Jimmy Jurado (Heritage) and George Caras (Broad Run) decided six minutes was not enough, and went the entire distance, all the way to ride out. Jurado was able to escape with less than five seconds to defeat Caras 3-2 in triple overtime.
Ryan Hagen (Potomac Falls) and Mike Fleming (Briar Woods) would come down to the wire as well at 152 and would come down to one point and 12 seconds. Fleming would be unable to score the point he needed and would lose 2-1 to Hagen.
One of the most impressive wrestlers of the tournament was Ernest Brown (Freedom) at 160 who went on to defeat Kevin James (Heritage) 12-9 in the finals.
Joining his as champions were Remington LaKose (Loudoun County) at 171, David Zedan (Potomac Falls) at 189 and George Black (Broad Run) at 215.
The big boys would bring it down to the wire as Ed Guzman (Park View) and Ethan Ochs (Briar Woods) would battle to a 2-0 match, and revenge for Ochs who was defeated by Guzman earlier in the season.
With all the individual awards, we cannot forget the team title, which was again in the hands of the Potomac Falls Panthers who scored 182.5 team points. Close behind was Heritage with 130.5 and Briar Woods with 125 points. The tournament win capped an undefeated dual meet season for the Panthers.
All of this leads on to yet another weekend of action as the top four wrestlers will take the mat this Friday and Saturday at Orange County for the Region II tournament. Top four finishers at regionals will qualify for the AA state meet.
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