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Fleming Island sends 11 to state

Randy Lefko
Posted 3/2/17

FLAGLER PALM COAST – Fleming Island High School wrestling scored four champions and seven finalists to take a resounding 45 point Region 1-3A championship win over Winter Springs Saturday night at …

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Fleming Island sends 11 to state


Posted

FLAGLER PALM COAST – Fleming Island High School wrestling scored four champions and seven finalists to take a resounding 45 point Region 1-3A championship win over Winter Springs Saturday night at Flagler Palm Coast High School. The win was the Golden Eagles second in two years for the region title.

“We knew we had the team title taken care of here and we are now looking forward to working hard this week and heading to the state meet,” said Fleming Island coach P.J. Cobbert. “We’ll fine tune the machine. Our kids are wrestling well now.”

Fleming Island scored 230 points for the team title with Winter Springs a distant second at 185.5 and Flagler Palm Coast third at 154. Region 1-3A is considered one of the strongest in Florida and had two more 100-plus point totals with Freedom High fourth at 131 and Hagerty fifth at 124.5. Oakleaf scored 27 points for 19th place.

Fleming Island opened the championship matches with back-to-back wins from sophomore Briar Jackson at 106; an 8-0 win over Ryan Rowland of Hagerty, and Albie Snedaker at 113; a 2-0 win over Timber Creek’s Corban Arana.

“Briar has been a beast and Albie is stronger than ever,” said Cobbert. “Briar has a mission in mind and you can see his focus. Albie gets more confidence each match since returning from his injury.”

Also at 113, Oakleaf junior Ryan Rosano, the region runnerup last year, advanced to his second state meet with a fourth place finish via a 2-0 loss to Michael Ortega of Cypress Creek in the consolation final.

From there, Flagler Palm Coast flexed soe muscle at 120 and 126 with Michael DeAugustino beating DeAndre Demus 5-3 and Avery Holder beating Marcus Jean Baptiste of Freedom 5-0 in the 126 match. Fleming Island’s Jacob Sandoval lost 9-2 to Winter Springs’ Matthew Phillips to finish fourth. Demus and Sandoval both finished fourth last year.

“Deandre gets a couple of calls and that match is ours,” said Cobbert. “He wrestled his butt off.”

At 152, Fleming Island junior Paul Detwiler, third in 2016, dominated a much taller Gage VanKuilenburg of Boone to win 18-3 before, at 160, senior Ben Sann got dismantled by defending region champion Max Wohlabaugh of Winter Springs by a 22-9 score in that final.

“Paul got rolled in his match, but look what happened after that,” said Cobbert. “He’s a hammer and will take care of business.”

In the upper weight brackets, Davis, the defending 195 region champion and a third place state finisher the past two years, won a 3-0 final over Winter Springs’ Jason DeGroat while Ryan Smenda, at 195, let Fletcher’s Narek Stepanyan get a last-second takedown and a 3-2 win. Smenda, the defending region champion at 182, pinned Stepanyan in their district final last week in 30 seconds.

“Ryan let that guy hang around and it cost him,” said Cobbert. “We have to finish. It didn’t really matter because we were up enough that we were going to win the title, but it’s a mental preparation thing for state. You can’t take a break on the mat there or it’ll cost you.”

At 220 and 285, Brandyne Mackey, a region qualifier last year, took third with a near-miss pin of Atlantic Coast’s Kirk Jackson that led to a 4-2 win while Jose Concepcion beat Christian Gomez of Hagerty 1-0 to finish third. Concepcion was pinned by 220 defending state champ Dylan Meeks in his semifinal match. Concepcion was region runnerup to Meeks last year at 220.

Also finishing top four and advancing to the state meet for Fleming Island was Trace Insalaco, fourth at 132. Insalaco was a region qualifier last year for Flagler. Vince Hauser ws 2-2 at 138 and Jalyn Robinson was 3-2 at 170.

Oakleaf just had Rosano advance to state with Cam’Ron Dove 1-2 at 106, Ethan Gustillo 2-3 at 126, Vince Karl 1-2 at 132 and Dexter Moore 1-2 at 195 on the region roster.