Wrestling notebook: Fairmont dethrones Point Pleasant; AAA duals, Snuffer Slam Saturday

Feb. 3—It has been an unfamiliar seven-day span for Point Pleasant.

Fairmont Senior dethroned Point Pleasant as the Class AA West Virginia Dual Team state champion on Friday, coming away with a 39-31 win in the finals of the fourth annual tournament at the State Fairgrounds.

Point Pleasant won the first three state duals championships.

It comes a week after Point, the four-time reigning state champion, was edged by a half point by Independence for the Class AA championship at the WSAZ Invitational.

Fairmont advanced with a 64-18 win over Independence in the quarterfinals, then took care of Braxton County 48-24 in the semifinals.

Point got started with a nearly perfect 78-6 win over Lewis County before defeating Oak Glen 50-28 in the semifinals.

Independence went 1-2 and finished sixth. The Patriots defeated Winfield 51-29 in their first consolation match before falling 45-31 to Herbert Hoover in the placement match.

The Patriots' Colton Miller was named his team's Most Outstanding Wrestler after a 3-0 day at 157 pounds.

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The Class AAA state duals will start Saturday at noon in the West Virginia Building. Woodrow Wilson will be there for the second straight year, and for the second straight year the Flying Eagles will face University in the first round. The Hawks took a narrow 37-32 win in 2022.

University comes in ranked as the No. 1 Class AAA team in West Virginia, while the Flying Eagles are fifth.

"I love it," Woodrow coach Matt Osborne said of the state duals. "And I like the new format bringing in the top two teams from each region. These are all teams that you really want to see.

"There's the strategy part that goes with it. I think last year I was lacking in the ability to be able to strategize in a dual tournament with how limited we were in our weight classes, but we've kind of diversified that a little bit. We're going to have a lot of options and be able to hopefully seek out some advantages."

The other quarterfinal matches pit No. 3 Wheeling Park against No. 6 St. Albans, No. 4 Spring Mills against No. 9 Cabell Midland and No. 2 Parkersburg South against No. 8 Washington.

"This is going to be a tough one," Osborne said. "So hopefully we can get healed up because I want to be ready. I think it's just exciting, because to me it's a state championship. and that's the way it's supposed to be. I know that's the way coach (Brian) Milk (tournament director) was thinking about it, too, and that's how I'm looking at it."

Wood County has owned the tournament the first three years. Parkersburg won the inaugural tournament in 2020, and Parkersburg South goes in as the two-time defending champion.

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Back in December, Shady Spring honored its legendary wrestling coach Dix Manning with its second annual Dix Manning Duals.

On Saturday, another event will honor one of Manning's proteges.

The second annual Larry Snuffer Slam will be held in Dave Wills Gymnasium and the auxiliary gym. Wrestling will begin at 10:30 a.m.

"It's pretty important to me, especially this year," current Shady Spring head coach Anthony Shrewsberry said. "Coach Snuffer just lost his wife a couple of weeks ago and I really wanted to have this one to show the support for him, to show how much the old wrestlers care for him and Connie. They did a lot for us.

"If you go back and look at the coaching tree that (Manning and Snuffer) produced, there's tons of coaches that have come out at Shady and other places. That's kind of the mark of a good coach, in my opinion. Good coaches make coaches, not just wrestlers."

Twelve teams will join the host Tigers in three pools of four, wrestling on four mats. Participating teams will be Liberty, Nicholas County, Hurricane, Nitro, Riverside, Herbert Hoover, Martinsburg, Braxton County, South Charleston, Elkins and George Washington.

The teams will be repooled after the first round.

The event will also serve as Senior Day. Shady seniors Tayla Grove and Danielle Simmons will be recognized.

Also, former Shady Spring wrestler Johnny Forren will be inducted into the Raleigh County Wrestling Hall of Fame after completion of the first round. Forren won the Class AAA 120-pound state championship in 2013.

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