3 martinsville wrestlers headed to nationals

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Three area wrestlers headed to nationals

By JOHNNY BUCK

Bulletin Sports Writer

 

 

Three wrestlers from Martinsville High School are headed to North Dakota via Blacksburg today.

 

Ricky Flood, Dorian Carter and Andrew Dionne will help represent Virginia at the ASICS/Vaughan Junior and Cadet National Championships in Fargo, N.D., in the coming days.

 

The trio, all rising juniors, is the largest Martinsville group ever to qualify for the nationwide event. They will practice and train briefly with their fellow Commonwealth teammates in Blacksburg and then head north. They'll be gone for 11 days.

 

"I've always kind of considered it the Mecca of high school wrestling," Martinsville wrestling coach Chad Ratliff said. "It's the peak."

 

He's not exaggerating. In order to qualify for the event, Dionne, Carter and Flood had to finish first, second or third in the state's Greco-Roman or freestyle tournaments. Dionne finished second in the Greco-Roman competition at 135 pounds. Carter took 3rd in Greco-Roman in the 145-pound division while Flood qualified for both divisions at 160 pounds, finishing second in Greco-Roman and third in freestyle.

 

They'll join up to 4,500 wrestlers from 48 other states on the floor of the FargoDome on the campus of North Dakota State. There, the action spread across 20 mats will decide national champions for each weight category. The Greco-Roman competition will take place July 23-26, while the freestyle event occurs from July 27-30.

 

The two events are different from the wrestling that goes on during the high school season.

 

"Freestyle and Greco-Roman are much more advanced styles," Ratliff said, noting that both kinds of wrestling are Olympic events, while folkstyle Ñ the type of wrestling done in the Piedmont District Ñ is not.

 

Freestyle wrestling is very aggressive.

 

"In folkstyle for example, slams are illegal. In freestyle the higher you throw your opponent the more points (you're awarded). It's less controlled and faster," Ratliff said.

 

Greco-Roman is a bit more subdued than freestyle. It allows throws only, eliminating leg attacks.

 

For those of you who've watched the Olympics over the last few years, Cael Sanderson won the gold medal in the freestyle event, while Rulon Gardner was a 2000 Olympic gold medalist in the Greco-Roman competition, defeating unbeaten three-time gold medalist Aleksander Karelin in Sydney, Australia.

 

Flood, the only wrestler of the three to make the trip to Fargo last year, said that he even though he'd never competed in the state's Greco-Roman competition until this summer, it was now his favorite style of wrestling.

 

"It's all upper body and I like slamming," he said.

 

Despite the tough competition that lay ahead of him, Flood had ambitious goals for his five matches in each event.

 

"I want to win at least three in both (events)."

 

Dionne felt differently.

 

"I (prefer) freestyle because Greco's all upper body and in free you get to shoot low," he said.

 

Dionne was also competing in his first state qualifier for the Greco-Roman team. For the second year in a row, he barely missed making the freestyle team, finishing fifth place, again. Still, Dionne was happy to get the chance to compete and looking forward to getting better.

 

"I just hope to win a few," he said. " At Martinsville we always try to go against the best competition in the state and this will be even better because we'll go against the best in nation."

 

Amazingly, Carter was even closer than Dionne to making the freestyle team. For the second consecutive year, the kid nicknamed "The Monster" finished fourth. Like his teammates, Carter was happy to get the chance to travel, and hoping to find success in North Dakota.

 

"I'm excited about going and I just want to get some matches in. It's going to be tough, but I want to win at least three out of five matches."

 

Ratliff felt that all three of his wrestlers had a great chance to perform well.

 

"Dorian is a brawler. He's just kind of wide open, quick as a cat, and like a cat he always lands on his feet," he said.

 

"Ricky is more technical. He likes to take his time and set things up," Ratliff said.

 

"Andrew's weight class of 140 was probably the toughest in the district," Ratliff said, noting that Dionne has improved a great deal from year to year. "His freshman year he didn't qualify for the regional tournament. (This year) he beat the returning district champion in the district semifinals to get to the finals."

 

Ratliff added that each wrestler had a great opportunity ahead of him.

 

"Ninety-five percent of college programs have a coach or recruiter there," he said. "They're gonna be a part of the Virginia National Team" and that's a great honor.

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http://www.vausawrestling.org/team_va.php

 

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