PEMBROKE — At the onset of the season, one of Austin Gallops’ personal goals was to win the Sandhills Athletic Conference wrestling championship in his weight class.
That’s what the 152-pound junior did Saturday in the SAC championship meet at Purnell Swett High School. He was the lone Richmond Senior High School wrestler to bring home a weight class title, but seven of his teammates also impressed on the mat.
Joining Gallops with podium spots were freshman Andres Sanches (106-pound) and junior Joseph Nicholson (113-pound), both of whom took second overall in their respective weight class. Sophomore Kaden Walker (160-pound) rounded out the top-three finishers when he took third.
Four other Raiders finished the day battling for third place but came up just short. Freshman Dante Baldwin (120-pound), sophomore Bryant Coll (126-pound), junior Steven Morales (132-pound) and senior Skylar Standridge (220-pound) all took fourth place.
As a team, head coach Earl Nicholson’s Raiders took fourth overall. Gallops, Joseph Nicholson and Sanchez were also named to the 2018 All-SAC wrestling team.
Gallops’ road to victory started with a bye in the quarterfinal round before facing Purnell Swett’s Gabriel Locklear. In the semifinals match, Gallops took a 12-6 lead after the first two rounds. He managed to pin Locklear, his only pin of the afternoon, with 1:13 remaining in the final period.
That set him up with a meeting with Pinecrest High School’s Monroe Payton in the finals. Neither wrestler was able to pin the other, as the championship match finished tied 10-10 at the end of regulation.
In the tiebreaker, Gallops and Payton got an extra one-minute period to determine the winner. According to Coach Nicholson, each wrestler “gets 30 seconds to try to score.” Knotted at 2-2, Gallops recorded the championship winning point with just one second left on the clock. The final score was 11-10 in favor of Gallops.
Sanchez and Joseph Nicholson’s title match appearances didn’t go the way they wanted them to. After pinning his first two opponents (Lumberton High School’s Anthony McCormick and Scotland High School’s Keldon Clark), Sanchez was pinned by Pinecrest’s Matthew Rowland in just 1:15.
Nicholson’s line looked similar, starting the day with a quarterfinals bye, before winning by pinfall over Pinecrest’s Treyvon Shodja in 38 seconds. He met Lumberton’s Justin Kelly in the finals match and lost in a 7-6 decision after three hard-fought rounds. In last week’s Bulldog Brawl, Nicholson defeated Kelly 15-2 in a major decision.
Walker had to work a little hard than his teammates in order to grab the third-place spot in the 160-pound match, wrestling four times instead of three. He began the day with a quarterfinals win over Purnell Swett’s Carter Oxendine, a 9-7 decision.
Jack Britt High School’s Denzel Carrucini pinned Walker just over halfway through the second period of the semifinal match, sending the Raider to the consolation bracket. There, in order to advance to the third-place match, Walker had to defeat Scotland’s Jacquez Henderson.
He made quick work of Henderson, pinning him in the second period. Walker went on to defeat Hoke County’s James Williams, a 7-2 decision, to take home third place overall.
Baldwin, Coll, Morales and Standridge all finished the tournament 2-2.
