Last season, Smithfield and 12 other high school wrestling teams were chasing Great Bridge in the Class 4 Region A tournament.
Smithfield finished a distant second to the Wildcats, a perennial power in Hampton Roads, but this season’s landscape will be drastically altered.
Only two teams will compete for the Class 4 Region A title: Smithfield and Grafton. All other member schools canceled their winter sports seasons.
“It’s not ideal, but we’re playing the cards we were dealt,” Smithfield coach Tony Leonard said.
With a solid returning core of wrestlers, including juniors Evan Christoffer (106 pounds) and Nik Voros (120), the Packers would have challenged for a top-three finish, but now find themselves as favorites to win what is basically a dual with Grafton.
Smithfield won the regular-season dual between the two on Tuesday and will host the “tournament.” The schools will automatically qualify their entire team for the Class 4 state tournament.
That means several Smithfield wrestlers in their first-ever season in the sport could be a region champion.
“I can’t even — it’s so hard to wrap my head around this thing,” Leonard said, “because I’ve got a handful of wrestlers, especially my heavyweights, who never wrestled in their life. I made connections with the football team (to get them to compete in wrestling, too), and they could be region champions, a goal that any four-year wrestler may never achieve.”
Region tournaments will take place over the next two weeks, with the Class 2 Region A tournament on Saturday at Poquoson; Class 3 Region A will be Feb. 13 at New Kent; the Class 4 Region A tournament will be on Feb. 11, the Class 6 Region A tournament will be on Feb. 13, and the Class 5 Region A tournament will be Saturday at Green Run High.
Class 6 already had a limited amount of teams and that number further decreased when Chesapeake canceled its winter season, leaving out Oscar Smith, Grassfield and Western Branch.
Kellam and Oscar Smith put on a show in last season’s tournament with the Tigers, the eventual state champions, winning the region tournament by just 12 points over Kellam (296-284).
Kellam, led by senior heavyweight Jake Thompson, is a clear favorite in next week’s eight-team tournament at Cosby.
Eighteen teams competed in the previous Class 5 Region A tournament, but Nansemond River will be unable to defend its title after Suffolk canceled its winter season.
Only eight teams will compete this weekend, led by top contenders Cox, Salem, First Colonial and Gloucester.
Ray Nimmo, 757-446-2364, ray.nimmo@pilotonline.com
