Fishburne Military School Wrestlers Take 2nd at News Leader Invitational

Recap by Coach C
photo gallery available at www.facebook.com/fishburnemilitaryschool

Morrison-Rodgers would go on to capture 2nd place in his weight class

The Fishburne Military School Caissons Wrestling Team traveled down the road yesterday to take part in the News Leader Invitational for the first time. It was a 12 team tournament with most of the local schools and a few that traveled to take part (Like Fork Union).

The day started out good as the team jumped out from the get-go winning all but one of its first round matches. Then it was on to the Quarter-Finals to see how many we could advance to the Semi-Finals. Once again the Team stepped up, advancing 9 to the Semi Finals out of 12 that entered the Tournament.

Next up was the big round, how many could keep it rolling and make the Tournament Finals? 5 would advance to the Championship matches and this was the second largest number of any team at the tournament. Only one team (Wilson Memorial) had 6 wrestlers make the finals.

Then it was back to the Wrestle-back rounds to see how our guys would do trying to come back and finish in 3rd place. 3 members of the team did just that by winning 2 more matches and finishing in 3rd place. Drake Hansen at 182; Jair Oglieve at 195; and Chandler Wright, who knocked off 2 wrestlers that were seeded ahead of him, took home 3rd Place at 160 pounds.

Next it was on to the Championship Finals where the Caissons would have, Brian Farrell at 126, Bevan Morrison-Rogers at 132, Daniel May at 138, Andrew Davis at 145, and Kyle Hale at 170 all taking part.

It all started with Brian Farrell at 126 who was seeded 2nd and taking on the top kid in his weight class. In the end, it was Farrell who was the tops in his weight, winning the first Championship for the team at this tournament. Next up was Biggie who started out strong and looked like he was going to end the match quickly but got caught and lost to take home second place. Next up was May at 138 and in a very hard-fought match that was back and forth the entire 6 minutes; but May took control in the final minute to win the team’s Second Championship. Next up was Davis at 145; he was the 3rd seed and had already knocked off the number 2 kid in the semi-finals. This was one of the most exciting matches of the finals (if not of the day). Davis fell behind on points early, then roared back to tie the score. Davis fell behind again, only to pull off a reversal and earn back-points in the final 30 seconds to become the team’s 3rd Champion of the day. Last up was Kyle Hale at 170. This was a match of old teammates from youth wrestling…Kyle would lose in the end and settle for 2nd place.

The team did an outstanding job on the day. Again, it was our first time being invited to this local tournament and, to quote the newspaper on Friday, “Fishburne is a nice local addition to the tournament”. The team did an OUTSTANDING job and showed a lot of the local schools that FMS is not just a little private school in Waynesboro. The team would walk out of the gym taking with them the Team Second Place Award (falling only behind the host school, Wilson Memorial) along with with 8 place-winners. A good day over all and a day in which, once again, these young men did Fishburne Military School proud.

On a side note, it was nice to see people from the local area cheering on the Caissons, we had people that had no ties to the school pulling for our young men by the end of the day. They respected how hard our guys worked on the mat.

Make sure to take a moment to pat these young men on the back once again for showcasing what type of young men we have here at FMS.

Fishburne Military School is the oldest and smallest of all military schools for boys in Virginia. Its college-prep curriculum is built upon the structure of an Army JROTC program. Boasting a 100% college-acceptance rate for the past 10 consecutive years, FMS has also been designated as a JROTC Honor Unit with Distinction and may nominate qualified candidates to the United States Service Academics. Fishburne hosts one of only four Summer JROTC programs in the nation, accredited by US Army Cadet Command. For more information visit www.fishburne.org.