Cardinals take second

Heathwood Hall's Preston Busbee goes for the pin against a Pelion wrestler. Busbee beat Cardinal Newman's Hunter Richardson in the final and collected the Most Outstanding Wrestler for 140 and below. Cardinal Newman hosted the Cardinal Holiday Classic on Saturday, December 13. In addition to the Cardinals, 12 other teams from all over the state (and one from North Carolina) competed for the right to call themselves champions. Gilbert High School won the team competition with a total of 229 points, defeating the hosts by 3.5 points.

The lower weight classes went quickly. Cole McCarter of Cardinal Newman won at 103; Preston Busbee of Heathwood Hall stepped down a class from last year and easily won at 112 (garnering the Most Outstanding Wrestler for 140 and below); Derek Geiges of Bishop England went up two classes and won at 119; Maksat Aubakirov of Cross School won at 125; Alex Guerin of Cardinal Newman won at 130; and John Dufor of Bishop England won at 140. The surprise to the home team's fans was when three- time SCISA state champion Talley Lattimore lost in the finals of the 135 to Gilbert's Zack Kennedy, who found out the night before that he was dropping a weight class to wrestle at 135.

Cardinal Newman's Cole McCarter pins a Gilbert wrestler to take the 103 class. The match of the tournament was the final of the 152 weight class. Cardinal Newman's Joey DeAngelis was pitted against Military Magnet's Solomon Ancrum, and the bout was close through- out all three periods.

Ancrum was ahead by a point with less than two seconds remaining when the two were judged out of bounds. On the restart, DeAngelis stood quickly, getting an escape before time expired tying the score. After three 30- second overtime periods, the score was still tied, and the next period began with DeAngelis getting the choice of position since he had scored the first points of the match. He chose down and wriggled free within 10 seconds to get the point and the match. His performance in this match earned him Most Outstanding Wrestler for 145 and above.

Other winners were Troy Israel of Pelion at 145; Brian Van Metre of Bishop England at 160; Jeff Hoover of Gilbert at 171; Zak Watkins of Gilbert at 189, aided by the absence of two- time SCISA champion James Williams of Cardinal Newman, who is recovering from a football injury; BJ Gibbs of Mid- Carolina at 215; and Leon Watts of Gilbert at 275. Team Scores: 1. Gilbert 229 2. CN 225.5 3. Pelion 156 4. Christ School (NC) 117.5 5. Bishop England 107.5 6. Heathwood Hall 98.5 7. Cross High 83 8. Whitmire 82 9. A.C. Flora 68 10. Military Magnet 67 11. North Central 67 12. Mid Carolina 62 13. Camden Military 14