Fauquier Wrestling News:

When a Falcon is in flight and it soars towards its prey from high above, it uses its legs and claws to grab hold of its predators to take home for its trophy. On Saturday February 5th the 14 Falcon wrestlers went about its business in the same manner slicing and dicing its district foes apart with no hope for them to even have a chance to stand other than on the 2nd and or 3rd position on the winner’s podium. Without question, the Falcons continue the winning tradition by capturing their sixth straight District title.

1st Place - AA Evergreen District

Going into the District Tournament the Falcons had 9 wrestlers with the #1 seed, 2 #2 seeds, 2 #3 seeds, and 1 #4 seed, which were based on their past season record. The Falcons were heavily favored going into this Saturday’s event. One would perhaps think before the season even started that having a new head coach (the past two seasons), there may have been a setback. This is not the case as the Falcons continue to maintain their flight with an overwhelming victorious season, earning a district tournament championship, and advancing ALL 14 wrestlers (the whole team) to the Regional tournament, topping last year’s 13 wrestlers and a school record. Below are the results of the District Finals and Consolation Finals for Fauquier.

District Finals
103 Kyle Montage (WC) dec. 7-3 Marco Tchuekado (FQ)
119 Bennett Payne (FQ) major 9-0 Tyler Fake (BD)
125 Chuck Hilleary (FQ) major 19-10 Kyle Bryant (LB)
130 Tyler Budd (FQ) dec. 7-6 Kyle Combs (LB)
135 Greg Flournoy (FQ) pinned 5:02 Seth Henson (BD)
140 Landon Dean (FQ) dec. 4-1 Cody Zimmerman (WC)
145 Seth Baker (FQ) pinned :55 Tyler Scheatzle (BD)
152 Van Grimes (FQ) major 13-1 Robert Candy (WC)
160 Will Pradus pinned 1:37 Max Strum (FQ)
171 Jake Fahlfeder (FQ) :46 Jason Miller (BD)
215 Brandon Hompson (BD) TF 17-2 Andrew Sengstack (FQ)
HWT Ben Cary (WC) dec. 7-6 Even Oddenino (FQ)

Consolation Finals
112 Michael Villalobos (FQ) pinned :47 Johnny Dice (KR)
189 Henry Weber (FQ) major 11-1 Jeff Budwash (WC)

In the end, the Falcons had 8 district champions, 4 runner-ups, and 2 third placers earning as they brought back to their nest their sixth consecutive district title. To look even further the falcons went 25 and 6 wins to losses and had a combined district high 15 pins and most points earn with 274 point.

So, how does it feel to coach the Falcons to its 6th straight district tournament?
Fisher: "It feels good to reach the first of our post season goals and we have positioned ourselves well to meet our next team goal. "

Being the overwhelming favorites going into the district tournament, were there any surprises that you thought occurred?
Fisher: "Some….. I was not surprised were we did better at some weights comparative to District Duals, but a couple guys who have been around the block left some matches fall through or almost fall through their grasp as a result of simple mistakes. Mathematically we probably ended net neutral."

Greg Flournoy vs. Seth Henson finals match, two very good wrestlers; any thoughts with this match?
Fisher: "Yes, I have been asked different versions of the same question by multiple people. “How did Flournoy open the gap between himself and Henson so significantly in the past year?”; and I believe the answer is multifaceted. First, I think Greg has been able to spend each and every practice this year improving his technique. He settled into the correct weight early this year, and has been much more disciplined with his weight management. Another contributing factor is Landon Dean. Landon has been his drill partner all year, and they push each other the entire practice. Finally, I think the Greg has really improved his ability to finish shots. Henson’s biggest strength is his counter offence (Scoring off of the opponent’s offensive effort) and Greg no longer gets frustrated and attempts to finish too quickly. He has taken his relentless pit bull-like bar and half pinning combination, and applied it to shot finishes. When you attack and dominate someone at their strength, the result is not a surprise."

Greg becomes now the fourth Falcon 4x district champ, how sweet is that?
Fisher: "That is an impressive accomplishment for him, but I know he is not content, nor should he be."

Moving forward to the Regional tournament is there any concerns, issue, and or adjustments with the team that you will need to addressed this upcoming next week?
Fisher: "Yes, we will get back to work Monday. We gave up numerous points because we came out of position. Some of those points cost us a couple matches. Each point is critical in the post season. You can never get those matches back; you can never get that District title back. We need all 14 guys wrestling fighting for every point in every match for us to reach our ultimate goal of the state title. That did not occur Saturday, so we have room for improvement.

Who do you think will give you the toughest challenge at the Regional tournament next week?
Fisher: Even though we are the returning Regional Champions, I suspect there are a couple of the other top teams in the region that are not simply going to simply concede the regional title to us. We will need to take it from them. Millbrook is coming in looking strong with 13 qualifiers, and a couple of big guns. Freedom is bringing all 14 and has a solid lineup and Potomac Falls is bringing 12."

Can you explain how important it is for the underclassmen (who have not ever wrestled in the state tournament) to place in the top 4 in Region and quality to States?
Fisher: "The answer is simple. It is absolutely critical for the underclassmen to reach the state tournament. It is vital to their personal wrestling development, while from a team perspective; we will need state team point production from everyone for us to reach our state title goal."

As head Coach Doug Fisher and company have redirected and installed a new system (this season) by injecting these high level wrestling concepts over the past year, it seems to be paying off as the Falcon wrestlers have responded and continue to wrestle on a very high altitude. Being ranked 3rd in the state in AA and ranked 7th in AA/AAA combined; it’s no surprise that these birds are proving to be a STATE power house team. The Falcons have been training all season and all year long for the 2011 High School post season to arrive. Coach Fisher now plans to refocus the team (once again) towards the Regional tournament which will be at Orange High School, next Friday and Saturday February 11th and 12th.