Williamstown’s Dutch Sandy, right, competes during a high school wrestling match earlier this season. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Someone has to be the first to claim the inaugural Division II title, which will be handed out Saturday night following the completion of the 78th annual West Virginia State Wrestling tournament that gets underway today inside Huntington’s Marshall Health Network Arena.

Ripley head coach Matt Smith’s Vikings, who finished fifth in Class AA a year ago with 115 points and was just behind fourth-place Williamstown’s 122, qualified 11 wrestlers to the final weekend of the season.

The Vikings had nine Region IV champions and are vying for the school’s first state mat crown.

Williamstown, which won back-to-back Class AA/A titles in 1982-83, qualified nine wrestlers and had a pair of Region I champs in freshman 120-pounder Landon Miller and returning state champ Dutch Sandy, who is competing at 138 after winning it all at 120 a year ago as a freshman.

“I’ve had some people asking me. I think right now Ripley is kind of that top dog everyone is chasing,” admitted WHS mat boss Tyler George, who qualified seniors Dylan Pucella (150) and Evan Turner (175). “I think they are set up really well. They had a good regional. Got a nice pill draw for their guys, but I’ve seen it a million times. Anything can happen down there in Huntington. If one or two things go the right or wrong way for a certain team there’s always a darkhorse or a couple darkhorses. I think other than Ripley, I think things could be a little tighter. This might be one of the first years there’s no clear cut favorite like certain years past with Point Pleasant or Fairmont Senior. I think it will be interesting.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if Ripley won the whole thing. They are a great team. They got a lot of talented kids, but I think one through four or five could be pretty tight honestly. I think Cameron could surprise people with just five guys. I think they got a shot to put five in the finals. (Herbert) Hoover is going to be tough and they were state runner-up last year. They’ll be right there.

“Independence is kind of over shadowed, but they are always a team that performs at the state tournament. It will be interesting. Keyser is in the mix, too. It’s going to be a team effort. I think it’s going to come down to your middle of the pack guys and can they get on the podium and score points? Can they win a couple matches even?”

Cameron, the final single-A state mat team champion in Mountain State history, amassed 126 points during last year’s state meet.

Things haven’t gone exactly according to plan for coach George and the Yellowjackets this winter, but they did repeat as Little Kanawha Conference champions.

“It’s been a battle,” admitted George. “It seems like we’ve had guys out every weekend for about a month now with flu A or some kind of injury. I think we’re finally piecing it together here. This is about the first time in my six years I’ve actually enjoyed that week off between the region and the state. It kind of benefited us this year. Looking at the season after last year and looking at some of the hopes and what we thought we could get done I think I’m pretty happy. There’s definitely room for improvement, but repeating as conference champs, back-to-back years, and prior to last year we hadn’t done that in 19 years. We hadn’t had a WSAZ placer in over 10 years. There were some years we didn’t go to it, but we ended up with five placers and a champ this year.

“I thought we could’ve done better and been first or second down there at the state duals, but dropped a tough one to Hoover and had a couple guys out. We came back to take third and we won our first regional title in 34 years, since 1992. There’s been some good teams come through and we had to double check that. I couldn’t quite believe it, but it seemed like anytime we were really good and we’d still lose it was to Oak Glen. Just hoping we can all piece together and these nine guys can be in sync and piece it together this weekend with some icing on the cake. Whether that’s a state title, runner-up, whatever it is in the team finish I just want us to go down there and compete hard and wrestle to the best of our abilities.”

Williamstown would’ve been even stronger going into the final weekend of the season if the flu bug hadn’t cost senior 126-pounder Aiden Meeks his season.

The Yellowjackets were hit with illness just a couple days before the regional. Five starters were under the weather, but Meeks was too sick to compete.

“I’m excited for these two seniors,” added the coach. “Dylan, this is only his fifth year of wrestling I believe, but he’s so invested it. That kid has probably worked harder than any kid I’ve ever watched at any level – college, high school, middle school, anything. The kid will put in extra every single day. He stays after practice 30 minutes every single day. If there’s any kid that deserves it it’s him, but this sport doesn’t go off just pure deserving or votes or anything. He’s still got to go out there and prove it. He’s got a tough one, but I think there’s no doubt that if he wrestles like he should he’ll find a spot on that podium. That would be the icing on the cake for his career right there.

“He’s looking to possibly wrestle at the collegiate level. Possibly Division III. He’s been visiting some schools and has some schools looking at him. We’re really excited about that. Evan Turner, he’s a great kid, man. A hard worker in the room. He’s a kid we’ve watched after for years now. He used to be my next door neighbor. Hasn’t really been dealt the best hand in life thus far, but that kid knows how to make the best out of it. Once he started investing into wrestling, just to get better, he had a nice turnaround season last year. I know his record right now doesn’t really speak volumes for how talented he is, but I think he’s definitely going to find a spot on that podium if he wrestles to his ability, too. Neither one of those guys have ever placed so if we can put them on the podium I think that would be great.”

This season also has been challenging for Sandy as the sophomore enters the state tournament with a 13-2 record.

“He had a bunch of injuries going on it seemed like throughout the year. Old stuff that would come up,” coach George said of Sandy. “Start coming off of one and something else would happen. He’s another one that was kind of riddled with a little bit of sickness, too. He made a decision to go up a couple weeks ago and I respect that for him doing that. A lot of people would have dodged some of the talent there at 138 pounds between (Keyser’s Jackson) Swingle and (Ripley’s) Lars Cooper.

“There are multiple guys there, but he was ‘hey, I want to help my team out and I think this will give us an opportunity’ which at the time we were hoping that Meeks would fill in at 126. It seems like regardless he’s happy about that decision and we’re happy about it. Win, lose or draw we’re going to go out there and finish the season, try to keep him healthy in the offseason and just keep building between him and some of our solid core guys here, kind of our foundation, nucleus, to get this team better.”

Now that the season is down to its final three days, the ‘Jacket head man is just hoping his team leaves it all on the mats.

“I’m excited honestly,” said George. “I want the best for our team and I think last year we outperformed what a lot of people thought we could do at the state tournament. Then you start getting a little pressure, like you got to match that or you got to beat it or whatever, but my team aside and all this aside, to be honest, I’m super excited for Friday night down at the state tournament.

“Like my old coach used to say ‘it’s better than Christmas morning. You can feel the electricity in the air.’ You got your blood round matches where you win and make the podium or lose and go home, and you got your semifinal matches. I hope and I plan that we have a decent amount if not most of our guys in that conversation Friday night.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com