St. James wrestling opens region with win over undermanned Myrtle Beach

Maybe it wasn’t exactly the performance Matt Anderson wanted from his wrestling team.

Still, it was far better than his Sharks leaving the Myrtle Beach gym with an ‘L.’

Led by its middleweights, St. James opened Region VII-4A competition with a win, downing the Seahawks 49-28.

“Our guys did well in a solid region match,” Anderson said. “Myrtle Beach is so top heavy, while we’re better in the early lightweights. They’ve had smaller guys at other matches, but not tonight. So it was up to our middleweights to do a job, and they did.”

Of the eight weight classes contested Wednesday night, Myrtle Beach grapplers split with their foes from Murrells Inlet. But without depth from lighter weight classes, the Seahawks needed a perfect performance in an effort to earn points lost via forfeit.

Franklin Cloer and Uriel Mauricio earned wins at 132 and 145 pounds, respectively, while it took Brandon Ellis a little over a minute to dispatch of his opponent in the 152-pound weight class. The No. 6-ranked wrestler at 152 pounds in Class 4A according to SCMAT, Ellis moved to 25-0 with the win.

“Can’t say enough about (Ellis), going 25-0. He’s really doing well for us,” the St. James wrestling coach said.

Also picking up a win for the Sharks was Daniel Buglione, claiming a 13-6 decision over Myrtle Beach’s Christopher Armijo in the 195-pound weight division. Ethan Mason and Mackenzie Tecco (106 pounds), William Goodyear (113 pounds), Adam Biamonte (126 pounds), as well as William Stewart (170 pounds) earned victories via forfeit.

The loss to open league competition didn’t sit all that well with Seahawks wrestling coach James Kratzer, questioning the preparedness of his squad in its first match since winter break.

“We weren’t where we needed to be tonight,” he said. “I thought we’d do a little better than we did, but we had some disappointing performances by some of our veteran wrestlers.

“… Winter break definitely hurt us. A lot were not in the room when they needed to, and it hurt us.”

Myrtle Beach picked up wins courtesy of Clifton Jones (138 pounds), Caleb Flowers (160 pounds), Stephen Desjardins (182 pounds) and Pedro Reyes (220 pounds). Heavyweight Daniel Mitchell also picked up a victory via forfeit.

Both teams are next expected to take part in Saturday’s Seahawk Duals at Myrtle Beach. Anderson is hoping Mother Nature doesn’t do her part to cancel the event, which is the last scheduled for the Sharks till mid-January.

“Our next match is … nearly two weeks after Seahawk Duals. That’s a good, long time … not really good for us,” he said. “Hopefully we can come up with some creative things in practice to keep us from beating each other up too much.”

This story was originally published January 4, 2017 at 9:15 PM with the headline "St. James wrestling opens region with win over undermanned Myrtle Beach."