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Swain County High's Austin Jenkins goes up against Willie Riddle from Robbinsville, with Riddle coming out on top in the end.
The Robbinsville Black Knights had a blowout win over Swain County Maroon Devils at Thursday night’s dual wrestling. The score was 53 points for the Black Knights and 15 for the Maroon Devils. Swain was victorious in just three of the 14 matches.
Signaling the start of the event, the normally bright gymnasium lights went dim and thunder and lightning sound effects filled the air. Then, the wrestling began.
For hours, wrestlers grappled in the ring, pinning one another down and trying to writhe out of the grips of their opponents. Impassioned shouts and jeers rang through the packed auditorium, the energy amplified by the blaring AC/DC and Motorhead tunes over the speakers between matches.
The match was intended to decide the Smoky Mountain Conference Championship. Both teams were undefeated in Conference going into the night, Swain Head Coach Adam Jaimez said. The Black Knights’ win means they are now the highest seed out of the Smoky Mountain Conference for the State Dual Team playoff.
The blowout by Robbinsville wasn’t expected.
Speaking before the event started, Robbinsville assistant coach Weston Haney said he predicted the event would be “electric.”
“It’s going to be competitive, which is what we want,” he said. “We want to push each other to be the best in the state.”
The two teams went head-to-head before, with that game coming down to being decided on criteria for the first point scored, according to Robbinsville coach Josh Winfrey.
“It was a close match last time,” Winfrey said. “This is going to be a barn burner.”
Speaking in the aftermath of the match Friday (Jan. 20), coach David Haney said he thought “our kids wrestled really tough, they did real well.”
He said what was next for Robbinsville was a conference tournament Saturday (Jan. 21), where they went hand to hand with Swain County again.
On Saturday, Jan. 28, the dual team playoffs will begin, and Robbinsville will host the first round.
Moving on
Swain Coach Jaimez said the loss was not the outcome his team was hoping for. All they could do now was regroup and move forward.
“All we can do is pick ourselves up and learn from our mistakes, what we did not do right,” he said. “We want to get more consistent with the level of execution and recognize what we’re good at.”
Jaimez’s tone was one of determination and resilience.
“This is not our final destination,” he said. “The kids gotta understand that. We all have to be OK, we have to pick ourselves up, and get back to work. That’s all we can do.”
In the second dual match of the night, the Maroon Devils beat the Andrews High School team 84 to 0, though Jaimez said that was because Andrews High only had one wrestler who participated. So, the whole game was decided based on that match, but Jaimez said it hadn’t been a noteworthy victory.
Following are the individual scores for Swain.
138: Owen Craig (SWCO) over Juan Rios (ROBB) (Fall 0:43) 145: Willie Riddle (ROBB) over Randall `Austin` Jenkins (SWCO) (Fall 1:40) 152: Blake Powers (ROBB) over Israel Ferguson (SWCO) (Fall 3:35) 160: Gabriel Lillard (SWCO) over Jeremiah Phillips (ROBB) (Fall 2:47) 170: Turner Jackson (ROBB) over Lucas Sutton (SWCO) (Dec 2-1) 182: Kage Williams (ROBB) over Darius Saunooke (SWCO) (TF 18-1 5:16) 195: Matthew Ferguson (SWCO) over Kyler Branham (ROBB) (Dec 4-1) 220: Koleson Dooley (ROBB) over Blake Sain (SWCO) (UTB 3-2) 285: Owen Blevins (ROBB) over Kohlton Neadeau (SWCO) (DQ) 106: Adair Panama (ROBB) over Sully Cunningham (SWCO) (TF 19-4 4:12) 113: Alexis Panama (ROBB) over (SWCO) (For.) 120: Loxston Hooper (ROBB) over Kale Stephenson (SWCO) (MD 12-1) 126: Christian Phillips (ROBB) over Jason Maffett (SWCO) (Fall 1:32) 132: Bobby Moore (ROBB) over James Stroman (SWCO) (Dec 3-1)