Mason Wrestlers Endure Tough Times at Richmond Meet

George Mason sent a small contingent of eight wrestlers to the prestigious Richmond Invitational Tournament this past weekend and found the competition to be just as it had been billed: very tough.

Tash Khan, Nick Pitas, Andy Millar, Mike Coleman, Trevor Quillin, Willie Hoover, Bob Bumgarner, and John Sullivan made the trek to Virginia’s oldest and most competitive tournament to test their skills against some of the best wrestlers in the state and found that it was not the tournament for a person with a fragile ego. It was the kind of event that would provide invaluable experience for the future, however. Led by Willie Hoover, the eight members of the Mason team placed 19th out of 29 teams entered. All wrestled very well, but the level of competition was such that wrestling well just wasn’t enough. Pitas, Coleman, Bumgarner and Sullivan all advanced to the round of 12 before being knocked out and Hoover, who last week won the Ft. Meade Invitational, managed a fourth place finish to bring home the lone medal of the weekend for the Mustangs.

“Everybody is very disappointed they didn’t do better,” said Coach John Pitas. “But this event was full of extremely good wrestlers and I think our guys have a lot to be proud of. Every weight class had district, region, or state medal winners, and there were even several All-Americans from a couple of the Prep schools entered. With the exception of three or four private schools, every other team entered was a Virginia AAA school. Also, most of our losses were very close so I think our guys see that we are headed in the right direction. The season has really just begun and this past weekend will be a good one to build upon.”

While the varsity was in Richmond, the JV journeyed to Winchester to enter a 16-team JV tournament where Rick Schumann placed second at 215, Barratt Kennett (171) and Arthur Wilson (152) placed 4th, and Jake Schwind (112) and David Ray (103) each went 2-2. The Mustangs’ next meet is a home contest on Jan. 5 at 5 p.m. with Strasburg, Loudoun County, and Courtland. The Strasburg match will be this season’s district dual meet.