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Big Reds hosting MSAC wrestling tournament

Parkersburg’s Stephen Myers, left, prepares to wrestle Parkersburg South’s Coleton Hill during the annual city dual. Myers and his Big Red teammates will be out to defend their Mountain State Athletic Conference wrestling championship on Saturday inside Memorial Fieldhouse. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Come 11 a.m. Saturday morning inside Memorial Fieldhouse, the Parkersburg High School wrestling team of head coach Matt Littleton will be out for a repeat Mountain State Athletic Conference championship.

The Big Reds have five grapplers expected to stand atop the podium in 106-pounder Seth Drennen, 132-pounder Stephen Myers, 144-pounder Kayden McDonald, 150-pounder Lars Cooper and 165-pounder Jesse Showalter, who won the MSAC 120-pound crown as a freshman. Drennen, Myers and McDonald are seeking repeat MSAC titles.

The only No. 2 seed for the Big Reds is 138-pounder Dominic Way. Coach Littleton said Way and top-seeded Ben McComas of George Washington haven’t met since junior high.

PHS also boasts a pair of No. 3 seeds thanks to 126-pounder Colston Skeen and 175-pounder Cyler Marks, while 215-pounder Zach Medina is seeded fourth. Also competing as varsity members for the Big Reds are Austin Carrodus (113), CJ Carrodus (120), Parker Woods (157), 190-pounder Akeem Bivens as well as heavyweight Gabe Davies.

“This is our perfect lineup that we have right now,” admitted coach Littleton. “We’ve kind of bumped Parker Woods up to 157 for this weekend and kind of test the waters there and see how things are.

“Lars Cooper is at 150 and that’s our dual meet roster and that’s our dual meet lineup and we’re going to see and kind of test the tournament roster on that and see how this fares, and kind of see where we are at tournament-wise and how it plays out.”

A first for the MSAC this year will be having junior varsity grapplers in the brackets.

“They passed that this year where we are able to put JVs into that,” Littleton said. “You know, I think we got a lot of solid backups.”

The red and white junior varsity members expected to compete are Aiden Linko (106), James Joy (120), Porter Cole (132), Timmy Hutton (157), Nate Blankenship (165), Brayden Stephens (175) and 190-pounder Luke Colombo.

“I definitely think we got a little bit of a target on our backs, but we’re OK with that. It lets us know that we’re the team, you know, and that teams think we are good. It doesn’t really change anything we do prep-wise. We are prepared to show up and wrestle our best. Regardless if a team is coming after us or not, our goal is everyday what can we do to get better.”

McComas, who was the 2022 champ at 106 and the 2023 victor at 113, will be going after his third title. Patriot teammates Kyle Beverly (215) and James Payne (285) also have No. 1 seeds.

The only other program with a trio of top seeds is Cabell Midland thanks to 120-pounder LJ Anderson, 175-pounder Carson Kohl and 195-pounder Braxton Johnson.

Hurricane’s Kaden Polen is the grappler to beat at 157. Huntington’s Ben Barrett, who won the title at 120 back in 2023, is top-seeded at 126. St. Albans, which won the MSAC crown in 2023, has its lone No. 1 seed thanks to 113-pounder Alonzo Long.

“We got some new guys in there who are going for their first,” added coach Littleton. “I think we got a really good team this year and I think we got a really good opportunity to kind of showcase what we’ve got as we come back in the state of West Virginia. We spent most of December in Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. We’ll kind of start seeing where we are at with local competition.

“We’re looking forward to it. Even like Stephen Myers, he comes out of December and he’s got like five or six losses on his record. You know, arguably one of the best wrestlers in the state of West Virginia right now and it shows where our schedule has been in December and I think our guys are a little battle tested and ready to kind of get into a different battle themselves.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com

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