Killian Cardinale unfastened his headgear and slumped into a catcher’s stance, the foundation of a nascent Patriot program resting upon his 106-pound frame. Cardinale’s 5-1 victory over Colonial Forge’s Levi Englman wasn’t just the first finals match to conclude at the 5A/6A state wrestling meet Friday in Fairfax — it was the first individual title in Pioneers history.
“It’s just so much hard work,” Cardinale said of earning a championship. “I wrote it down in a book as a goal.”
Colonial Forge won the 6A team competition handily, tallying a score of 147. Runner-up Centreville trailed with 57.5 points, and Robinson placed third with 51.5.
Sophomore Michael Battista didn’t hold Broad Run down, but he did hog-tie Potomac Falls’s Garrett Griffith during the final moments of an 8-7, double-overtime win in the 5A 160-pound final. Battista’s denial of an escape was the Spartans’ high water mark. Broad Run (67) finished second to Chesterfield’s Matoaca (78) in the 5A team competition. Briar Woods and Freedom-South Riding finished in a tie for 10th.
Still, with a runner-up finish in last week’s 5A North region meet and a chance at the same finish Friday, Broad Run Coach J.J. Totaro left satisfied with his team’s performance down the stretch,
“I wish I could tell you what ‘the thing’ was,” Totaro said. “They’re just a solid team. They fight together, they’re always supporting one another, and it just provides the momentum they need.”
In Robinson’s wrestling room, a few hundred feet from the cavernous gym that housed the finals, the Rams keep photographs of past state champions. For much of the action, it appeared there would be no new additions .
But with six seconds remaining in his 145-pound bout against Corey Loenard, Austin Riggs carved out a place for his portrait. He shimmied his way to a reversal en route to a frantic 5-4 decision. The senior Naval Academy recruit blew kisses to the crowd, then leapt into the outstretched arms of Robinson Coach Bryan Hazard. Cole Depasquale later repeated as a champion at 182.
“I just had a good feeling going into today,” Riggs said, still panting. “Coaches teach us to go until the last second, and sometimes it’s that last second that matters the most.”
Other local individual champions included Mount Vernon’s Bill Adusei-Poku, Centreville’s Victor Echeverria and Tyler Love, Battlefield’s River Curtis, McLean’s Conor Grammes and Westfield’s Justin Yorkdale and Austin Knies.
For many coaches, the talk of the meet was the abridged format. Due to expected inclement weather on Saturday,the Virginia High School League opted to eschew the traditional two-day schedule to hold the entire meet — weigh-ins through finals — on Friday. In doing so, the field was reduced to single elimination with first round wrestle-backs eliminated.
South County Coach Sean Anderson compared the change to asking the state finalist football teams to play one half to determine a champion. He added coaches proposed other scenarios, but ultimately, a one-day event was the decision.
“And there’s not a person in this gym who’s happy about it,” Hazard said.
In Friday’s 4A meet in Salem, Dominion’s Adeeb Atariwa was the lone local individual champion at 285 pounds.
