Parkersburg grapplers claim MSAC crown

Parkersburg’s Stephen Myers, the No. 2 seed at 126, recorded a 17-4 major decision against top-seeded and two-time Mountain State Athletic Conference champion Ben McComas of George Washington en route to earning the Outstanding Wrestler award on Saturday inside Memorial Fieldhouse. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — For the first time since 2020, the Parkersburg High School wrestling program finished atop the Mountain State Athletic Conference as the Big Reds crowned four champions and amassed 215.5 points to top runner-up Huntington’s 167.5 here Saturday at Memorial Fieldhouse.

Big Red Stephen Myers, who was named the Outstanding Wrestler, secured two takedowns in the initial 41 seconds en route to registering a 17-4 major decision against two-time MSAC champ Ben McComas of George Washington in the 126-pound finale.

Myers was joined atop the podium by teammates Seth Drennen at 106, Kayden McDonald at 120 and 165-pounder Jason Williams, who had the quickest finals mat slapper of 32 seconds against GW’s Noah Green.

Drennen registered the first takedown versus Huntington’s Trevor Morgan and went ahead 4-0 with 1:37 left in the match following a reversal.

The Big Red secured a 4-3 triumph.

Parkersburg’s Kayden McDonald escapes from the grasp of Cabell Midland’s L.J. Anderson during their 120-pound Mountain State Athletic Conference championship match on Saturday afternoon inside Memorial Fieldhouse. McDonald won via a 5-0 decision. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

McDonald came out and used just seven seconds before taking down Cabell Midland’s L.J. Anderson. McDonald added an escape in the second and another takedown in the third for a 5-0 decision.

The Big Reds of head man Matt Littleton, who was named the MSAC Coach of the Year, held out top-seeded 113-pounder Dominic Way, but had Porter Cole fill in and place fourth. Top-seeded 215-pound Big Red Adam Elder reached the final, but didn’t compete against Cabell Midland’s Matthew Edwards.

“Elder has been fighting a couple of injuries and we thought we had a great chance to make the finals and I thought, obviously he wanted to wrestle and score the team some points here, but once we knew we had it locked up we decided to injury default him and let him kind of save himself a little bit and recover,” admitted coach Littleton.

“Dom’s still a little banged up and fighting a knee injury. I’m hoping to get him back next week. Obviously, Porter Cole stepped in and stepped up big and got fourth place, and scored us a lot of team points as well. It was great to see him out there doing what he could do for us.”

PHS also had runner-up efforts from 132-pounder Lars Cooper, 138-pounder Simon Inboden, 150-pounder Jesse Showalter and 157-pounder Silas Wotring. Cooper was pinned in the first period by St. Albans’ Matthew McAfee and Inboden suffered the same fate versus Highlander Garrin Arthur, as did Wotring when he was pinned by Hurricane’s Saige Walls. Showalter, who was the 120-pound MSAC champ in 2022, was pinned in the second period by Moses Eades of St. Albans.

Parkersburg's Seth Drennen, the No. 3 seed, completes a reversal against top-seeded Trevor Morgan of Huntington during their 106-pound Mountain State Athletic Conference championship match on Saturday afternoon inside Memorial Fieldhouse. Drennen secured a 4-3 decision. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

Eades’ 144-pound teammate Sam Giordano also had to settle for runner-up after losing to Joe Riggs of Huntington by fall in 76 seconds. Riggs, Arthur, McAfee and Eades each won their second career MSAC crown.

Huntington’s Owen Woodrum finally secured a mat slapper with 20 seconds remaining in the 113-pound final against Spring Valley’s Kayden Maynard.

Kyle Beverly of George Washington pinned Highlander Rowan Dunham exactly halfway through their match to win 175. Cabell Midland’s Robert Shockey registered the only technical fall as he topped Hurricane’s Khalil Ramey, 16-1, at 190. Redskin Owen Duffy won via fall in 3:15 against Cabell Midland’s Gage Ruley to secure the heavyweight championship.

Cabell Midland (156.6), Hurricane (124.5) and George Washington (110) rounded out the top five team scores. Last year’s champion St. Albans finished in sixth with 106.5 points and was followed by Spring Valley (70), Riverside (45), South Charleston (20) and Capital (19).

“I just thought to myself I got to be myself to win everything and I went out there being myself and I won,” admitted Myers, who was the No. 2 seed behind McComas.

Parkersburg 165-pounder Jason Williams secured a first period pin against George Washington's Noah Green during the championship match of Saturday's Mountain State Athletic Conference championship inside Memorial Fieldhouse. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

The freshman said of the game plan “be as aggressive as I can and see if I could try to break him and see if I could turn him. I’m just blessed. I’m blessed with every opportunity that I have, and with the team.”

Coach Littleton, who like first-year Huntington head coach John Dempsey was glad to see some new opponents, was definitely content with the Big Reds’ effort.

“We’re still a little banged up and still trying to get healthy in some aspects there, but it was a good showing and it was nice to see some of these teams,” Littleton added. “We’ve been out of state a lot for December and we haven’t got to see a lot of these in-state competition. I think Stephen has had this kind of circled on his calendar ready to go.

“They’ve wrestled a lot this summer and he knew a little bit about Mr. Ben McComas, but you know Stephen is special. When he’s on, he’s on, and he’s fire and he’s very difficult to beat, and he was on tonight. Great win by him and he’s going to continue to try and get better and widen that gap as much as it already is.”

Coach Dempsey, who took over on a then interim basis for former head man Rob Archer last winter, had consolation finals wins from Ben Barrett (126) and Stephen Jones (132).

“This is the first time seeing a lot of these teams,” admitted Dempsey, who noted the Highlanders aren’t quite yet at full strength. “This is the third time seeing Parkersburg and they are the best team and that’s why we want to see them. We came in last year and had two or three good rounds and we had one round where we didn’t do very well, the consolation.

“I think we went like 1-for-5 and this year we went 4-out-5 matches, which is better and that’s a lot of placement in that comeback round. We wrestled really well that round. Our seniors did a good job with everybody and talking to the freshmen. I’m happy, but it’s a long season. We lost a couple matches for third and fourth that I’d like to get back, but that’s part of the thing.”

Cabell Midland had a quartet of third-place showings thanks to Dennis McCrary (138), Levi Wiseman (150), Braxton Johnson (157) and Carson Kohl (165). Spring Valley (Garryk McFeely, 190; Tucker Hammond, HWT) and Hurricane (Kaden Polen, 144; Cohen Lusher, 215) had two apiece. The other consolation finals victors included Capital’s Dylan Burkes (106), GW’s Owen Anderson (120), Parkersburg’s Cyler Marks (175) and Riverside’s Ethan Pack (113).

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com

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Parkersburg High School’s Stephen Myers, Dominic Way earn All-American honors