Chesapeake’s regional champion Xander Dodd (215) remained undefeated with a 90-second fall against fellow junior Xxavien Mackell of visiting No.17 Old Mill as the unranked Cougars clinched their second Anne Arundel County dual meet crown in the past three seasons on Friday night.
Dodd improved to 31-0 by using a three-quarters nelson to finish off Mackell, a returning county runner-up who placed third at regionals and won 29 bouts last season. In victory, the Cougars improved to 11-1 in the county, 12-1 including a non-league win over River Hill of Howard County, and 27-2 overall.
“We won the county dual meet championship in 2022 when we also won the county tournament, the Class 3A south regional duals and the Class 3A state duals,” said Randy Curtin, in his ninth year coaching the Cougars. “This year's varsity lineup has the best grades of any team that I have coached. I don't know the exact GPA, but in monitoring their grades on a weekly basis, I can tell that theirs is the highest.”
One of the craftiest matches came from first year wrestler, junior Phillip Ramsey (150), who was pulled up from the junior varsity to earn a 2-0 decision.
“Phillip is a first-year wrestler. We pulled him into the varsity room for Thursday’s practice. On Friday we told him he would wrestle varsity against Old Mill. He wrestled a very smart and disciplined match,” Curtin said. “In the first period, nobody scored. In the second period, Phillips was unable to get an escape and the score remained 0-0. In the third period, Old Mill chose bottom. Phillip kept a hard ride the whole period and got a two-point near-fall from a cross-face cradle to win the match 2-0.”
Curtin’s son, junior Matthew (165), improved to 23-6 with a decision against his Patriots rival.
“Matthew wrestled an inspired match and defeated Dominic Hurley 9-3. Matthew kept up the pace the whole time and outscored Hurley 9-2 in the third period,” Curtin said. “Matthew picked up a blast double takedown early in the period and defended a lateral drop to score five points as the match ended. Matthew is peaking right now, and I’m looking forward to seeing him take this momentum into the post season.
A third-place finisher at counties and regions, senior Michael Greenstreet (132) is 26-1 following his fall in 1:59 over the Patriots’ Paxton Verner.
Fourth-place regional finishing senior Keanu Furbush (175) is 29-3 after winning an 8-3 decision over the Patriots’ Noel Norman Williams.
The Cougars’ regional runner-up sophomore Brayden Roberts, who placed third at counties, has a record of 28-3 after winning a major decisioned Keon Gavin, 15-7.
Cougars’ junior Ethan Mills (144) is 22-6 following his 12-4 major decision. Sophomores Owen Collins (138) and Gavin Lewis (190) won narrow decisions. Collins is 21-6 after winning, 6-4, and Lewis, 13-5, after winning, 3-0. Yet another winner was Cougars’ senior Jackson Worley (126), who defeated Omar Khan, 10-5.
“This is the most competitive that I have seen the county’s wrestling. There are no bad teams in the league,” said Curtin, whose Cougars won 10 of 14 bouts against the Patriots. “The top four teams were Chesapeake, Old Mill, South River and Broadneck, but you also have Arundel and Crofton really coming on strong and Crofton hitting their stride. All 13 teams have solid wrestlers in their lineups.”
Curtin is a 1998 graduate of Hammond High in Howard County, a program which earned that year’s county, Class 2A-1A South Region and Class 2A-1A state duals and tournament crowns. Curtin earned a county tournament crown and placed third at the regions before falling short at states to the eventual state champ and third-place finishers.
“We lost to South River 36-30. It was a difficult night for us, but our guys came back inspired this week with the win over Old Mill,” Curtain said. “South River presents a challenge for us in the regional duals. They are a very solid team from top to bottom, with no weaknesses. They wrestle hard and they make very few mistakes.”
Last year’s Cougars were defending Anne Arundel County tournament and Class 3A state duals champions when they split regular season matches South River. The Seahawks continued on to win their second straight Class 4A state dual meet title, having since dropped into Class 3A where they will compete for that crown along with the Cougars.
In January 2022, Curtin oversaw the Cougars’ wrestling room being renamed in honor of late alumnus Matthew Tobey Eveleth, a four-time Class 4A-3A state finalist and three-time champion.
The youngest of three siblings, all of whom were state title winners for the Cougars, Eveleth was 37 when he died of pancreatic cancer in July 2021 as the most accomplished wrestler in the history of Chesapeake High.
Older brother, Brian, 49, was a one-time champion in 1991, and Jeff, 40, a two-time title winner, the latter being a senior teammate with Matt on the Cougars’ 2000 championship squad. Matt earned three state titles in four championship berths, leading the Cougars to state tournament crowns as a sophomore and again as a senior in 2002.
Chesapeake won state tournament titles in 1981 as well as 2000 and 2002.
Curtin coached a pair of individual Class 4A-3A state tournament champions in 2022 with senior Listorti siblings Chase (145) and Victor (182), whose father, Tony, is an assistant to Curtin. An alumnus of Chesapeake, Tony Listorti placed fourth at states after winning county and regional titles as a senior in 1982.
“The seeding meeting for the county tournament should present a challenge,” Curtin said. “I predict that we will see quality wrestlers placing fifth and sixth in the county tournament because some of the weight classes will be really deep.”
Chesapeake 38, Old Mill 19
106: Tristan Sudama (OM) maj dec Mason Szczeszek 8-0
113: Logan Johnson (OM) pin Nolan Behler 1:40
120: Brayden Roberts (CH) maj dec. Keon Gavin 15-7
126: Jackson Worley (Ch) dec. Omar Kahn 10-5
132: Michael Greenstreet (CH) pin Paxton Verner 1:59
138: Owen Collins (CH) dec. Dekhi Church 6-4
144: Ethan Mills (CH) maj dec. James Manning 12-4
150: Phillip Ramsey (CH) dec. Reid Jones 2-0
157: Trey Martini (OM) dec. Collin Richardson 7-3
165: Matthew Curtin (CH) dec. Hurley 9-3
175: Keanu Furbush (CH) dec. Noel Norman Williams 8-3
190: Gavin Lewis (CH) dec Deven Perry 3-0
215: Xander Dodd (CH) pin Xxavien Mackell 1:30
285: RJ Duncan (OM) pin Jonas Dotson 0:52
Comments