ORANGE PARK - Clay High traveled to Osceola High to take on Pace High in the Region 1-2A final and lost 49-14 as Pace advanced to the Class 2A Final Four. Pace lost to Somerset who eventually lost to Lake Gibson in the 2A championship dual.

Clay got wins against Pace from Drew Holmquist at 165, an 11-3 win, Calvyn St. Clair at 157, a 13-6 win and a thrilling reversal to pin from Liam Soto at 106.
At 132, Landon Willard had a cradle established with nine seconds in his match but could not get the pin against seventh ranked in 2A Aden Cortez of Pace.
St. Clair, ranked fifth in 2A, defeated eighth ranked Giancarlo Parrish with Parrish getting out of a cradle in the second period.

Holmquist, ranked second in 2A, defeated Tagg Strickenberger, the 17th ranked wrestler in 2A at 165 with two quick ankle picks and a nifty Granby.
Drew Loveland, 14th ranked at 175, fought back to a 10-10 tie with fifth ranked Bowen Iorg, with a takedown with 37 seconds left in the second period and got to a 14-13 score in the third before avoiding a pin in the final seconds with Iorg winning 22-13.

Clay will have a Feb. 4 dual match with Middleburg next week.

Panthers second at Growl

Ridgeview High wrestling coach Mark Detoro has been a coach of making a difference in the many venues of his career in Clay County and Saturday's performance by his Panthers wrestlers, a second team overall finish at the Panther Prowl invitational in his home gym, may have been a glimpse of the direction of the program.

Ridgeview, behind 157 champion Gavin Emile, 120 champion Parker Wernet, 126 champion Tanner Rogers and 285 champion Garrett Davis, finished second with 131.5 team points to Panther Growl champion Cornerstone Classical Academy of Jacksonville—another young and fast improving program from the area. Oviedo was third at 126.5 and Palatka fourth at 100. Orange Park was fifth with 96 points with a Ridgeview B team eighth at 38, St. Johns Classical Academy ninth at 28.5 and Keystone Heights 10th at 19.

Cornerstone finished with three champions and nine top five finishers for their team title. Keystone Heights had a fourth and fifth place finish with Anthony Durning and Luciana Mercado.

Orange Park got individual titles from Elijah Grant and Donovan Hall with Justin Garay and Oconnor Chamness both second placers. Moises Acosta and Xavier Hernandez were both thirds. St. Johns Classical had two wrestlers: Jacob Reyes, fourth at 165, and Zachary Davis, second at 120.

Ridgeview had eight wrestlers with top five finishes.

"We want to take on as much mat time as we can and learn a little bit more from each match," said Detoro, who orchestrated three district titles as head coach at Oakleaf and was part of a decade of Class 3A dominance at Fleming Island. "Ridgeview wrestlers are wrestling tougher and taking on more competition."

Part of Detoro's plan is to invite wrestling programs from anywhere to collaborate with him and give his guys as much mat time as possible with Clay and Fleming Island recently joining DeToro's troops in dual match style "Shoutouts" at Ridgeview.

"It's important to get guys on the mat and let them maybe get roughed up and challenged by wrestlers from other schools," Detoro said. "We're going to piece by piece get better results."

One team that created a bit of a stir for the Growl fans was two wrestlers from South Carolina 4A powerhouse Lucy Beckham High.

"They had two guys that were going for 200 career wins and 150 career wins, but they were not going to able to stay on pace to achieve that and their coach gave me a call and asked if he could get into our meet," Detoro said. "With the incoming snowstorm up there, they wanted to travel to Florida and let these two guys get four or more matches so they could get to their numbers."

Lucy Beckham coach Eric Hansen, who started the program six years ago when the school opened, has made a steady trajectory with his wrestlers, making Beckham wrestling one of the top programs in South Carolina.

"We have two guys here; Gianni Bottone, at 138, last year's 132 5A state champion and a commit to wrestle at The Citadel next year, and Matt Spignardo, at 144, a state placer and national wrestler like Bottone, who wanted to stay on the mat despite the weather," Hansen said. "Coach Detoro was gracious and got us in and even offered a room in his house for us."

Bottone and Spignardo both dominated to wins in their weight classes at the Panther Growl to give the two-man team a 49-point finish.

Bottone finished with four pins with a pin over Palatka's Curtis Wright in his final while Spignardo got a third period pin over Orange Park's Justin Garay in the 144 final. Spignardo executed two first period pins to advance—an 18 second and a 46 second pin to advance.

Bottone also pinned through with pins of 37, 1:13, 26 and 36 seconds for his individual title.