West Virginia Wrestling

2000 Team West Virginia

Greco and Freestyle Nationals Fargo, North Dakota

July 23, 2000 -- West Virginia had a respectable cadet greco tournament. Jeff Courtney had a very good tournament going 5-2. He lost to Bergman from Ohio and Jensen from Nevada. He had wins over Iowa S Carolina Massachusetts Oregon and Colorado. Jeff came very close to placing.

Chris Gibbs had a good showing in his first attempt at Greco Roman Wrestling going 2-2. He got a tech Fall over a Montana opponent before losing 7-0 to Wolfe from Ohio. He came back with a 11-9 win over a Barthelemay from Louisiana. In his fourth bout Chris got surprised by a headlock and got pinned. (lots of cowboys in Greco).

Matt Smith went 1-2. Matt had a close one his first bout. Matt was down 3-0 until he got a throw with 15 sec in the bout to win 4-3.

Blane Mayle went 2-2. He got wins over Burgeman form S. Carolina and Cusson form Montana before losing his last two bouts with potential place winners Pederson from Minnesota and Jones from Oklahoma.

Scott Hartlieb went 1-2 in his first attempt at Greco. He defeated Janseck from Michigan 12-7. He lost his next two to Wornz from Virginia and Schultz from Indiana.

Jason Koontz Braden Shaw Anthony Delligatti and Daran Hays went 0-2.

Juniors get started this afternoon at 4 pm.

July 25, 2000 -- We had four wrestlers make it through the first day of Junior Greco competition -- Justin Stanley, Joey Mayle, Mitch Hastings and Sammy Bonasso.

Justin Stanley finished with the best junior performance going 3-2 including a tech fall over nationally ranked Wayne Weems of Illinois. He also had a tech fall over New York and a fall over an Hawaiian.

Joey Mayle won his first two over opponents from Delaware and Iowa. He lost his net two.

Sam Bonasso won his first by tech fall over Herer of Michigan and lost his next two.

Mitch Hastings won his first bout over Kaehl Rader of North Dakota before losing his next two.

Eric Noel gave a good showing in his first Greco Tournament. He had a close loss his first bout and came back with a win over Mat Wood of Oregon.

JP Stanley got a win over Josh Jenson of Minnesota before being eliminated.

The rest of the group went 0-2.

We knew coming into this that Greco would not be a strong showing for us. We actually were encouraged by how the boys wrestled. Most of the camp was geared toward freestyle. This is such an intimidating tournament that we were willing to take the losses for the boys to get used to the surroundings.

The Cadets get started on Wednesday and the Juniors start Thursday.

An added treat for us is we get a chance to watch the final wrestle -off for the 187 lb Olympic berth between Charles Burton of Indiana and Les Gutches of Iowa. The winner goes to Sidney. That will be on Thursday.

August 1, 2000 -- The WV National Team has returned from Fargo ND. WV did not have an All-American this year but many of the boys had a good showing against the best in the nation. There are many "national" tournaments out there. This is the biggest tournament in the world. They ran almost 10,000 matches on 23 mats in 7 days! Obviously the top college coaches think that this is the place to watch the future of USA Wrestling. I personally saw the coaches of the following big colleges: Iowa State, Oklahoma State, WVU, Penn State, Ohio State, Illinois, Indiana, Arizona State, Edinboro, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and I'm sure there were many more. The rest of the state had better watch out for these tough young wrestlers. There were many past and future state final matches wrestled during training camp. I was proud to coach these tough dedicated young men who were not intimidated by the size of the tournament. It takes a lot of guts and time for these individuals to compete!

We were a young team with limited freestyle and greco experience. But most of the boys will be back next year. Every WV wrestler and fan should be proud of these young men:

Eric Noel - Oak Glen                  JP Stanley - Cabell Midland
Justin Stanley - Cabell Midland       Darren Hays - North Marion
Jed Ott - North Marion                Mitch Hastings - Huntington
Robbie Williams - Huntington          Matt Easter - Nitro
Matt Smith - Ripley                   J. Deligati - Fairmont Sr.
A. Deligati - Fairmont Sr.            S. Hartlieb - Fairmont Sr.
Jeff Courtney - Fairmont Sr.          Joey Mayle - Buckhannon
Blane Mayle - Buckhannon              Chris Gibbs- Cabell Midland
Kyle Turnbull - University            Jason Koontz- John Marshall
Braden Shaw - Brooke                  Willis King - Ripley
Jason Mays - Huntington               Sammy Bonasso - Fairmont Sr
Great showings by: JP and Justin Stanley Jeff Courtney Matt Smith and Chris Gibbs.

Special thanks to the following individuals who gave their time and effort to help the team:
Jason Ward - helped train the team at camp
The Mays Family - housed some boys during camp
Dr. Mike Gibbs - Team doctor and driver
Tim Mayle - Team investigator and champion driver
The Stanley Family - housed most of the boys during camp
RC Wrestling Supply - team singlets
Ocean Graphics (Huntington) - donated team shirts
WV State Troopers Association - donation

And a special thanks to Dennis Stanley. Dennis goes beyond the extra mile by working year-round on sponsors and coordinating the trip to make sure that everything goes perfectly. Thank you Dennis.

To anyone interested in being a member of next years team there will be an information booth set up at the state tournament.


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