By Josh Hoke
jhoke@thesunnews.com
COLUMBIA | Fifteen minutes after the final duals match of his Loris wrestling career, Maurice Morris sat with his face buried in his hands. The tears had barely stopped flowing since the match ended and were starting to form a small puddle near his feet.
Many of his teammates, especially the team's other five seniors, were mired in similar acts of mourning around the gym. It was obvious the Lions learned on Saturday that the emotional low of losing in the state championship is much more extreme than the emotional high of winning it.
The Lions bid for a third straight Class AA title was squashed by upstart Abbeville, who weathered an early storm, surged ahead in the middle weights and then held on for the school's first title with a 31-22
win at Ridge View High School.
``It's tougher to lose now,'' Morris said. ``To come all this way and lose, I think it would have been easier if we would have lost earlier and didn't make it this far.''
The emotional nature of the win didn't help the Lions either. Abbeville won the state title on Beau Sanders' sudden-death takedown of Loris' Waley Soles at 189 pounds. Had Soles won the match, Loris would have cut Abbeville's 28-22 lead to three points or less and forced a decisive battle at 215 pounds, the last weight class to wrestle.
Instead, Sanders shrugged off Soles' attempted takedown 10 seconds into sudden death and immediately converted one of his own, sending the Panthers to the state title in just the program's fifth year of existence.
``I tried to hip toss him, but, instead of him falling over, he stayed off the mat,'' Soles said. ``I just tried to get out of bounds and save the two [points].''
Although the match was decided at 189 pounds, momentum swung more than an hour earlier at 130 pounds. Late in the third period of a 4-4 match between Loris' Montell White and Abbeville's Andrew Tillman, Loris coach Tommy Britt told White to surrender an escape point so that he could restart the match in a neutral position.
Britt was hoping that White could then earn two points with a takedown, but the two-for-one scenario never materialized and Tillman won 8-4. That cut Loris' lead to one and the Panthers road their momentum to wins at 135, 140, 152 and 160 pounds to take a 28-16 lead with three matches remaining.
``We've done that all year long,'' Britt said of the decision to surrender the lead late in the 130-pound match. ``We feel that we are just as good as anybody on our feet. We thought we could take him down. ``I thought that was our best chance. We've done for three years now and it's worked every year. We live and die by it. Today we lost by it.''
Abbeville coach Anthony Martin said Britt's decision worked in his team's favor.
``I knew as soon as he let him up that we've got this,'' Martin said. ``I knew he wasn't going to get thrown.''
Knowing his team needed a pin to have any chance at the comeback, Morris pinned Avaryhus Sherard at 171 pounds in 31 seconds, setting up the Soles-Sanders duel, which was deadlocked at 15-all entering
sudden death. Both teams forfeited at 215 pounds with the championship already decided.
When it was all over, the Lions were left to reconcile with the reality that the threepeat was within their grasp.
``It hurts,'' Britt said. ``That [state championship] is what you go for all year. You want to stay on top. All year it's first place or nothing and we fell short. I'm proud of the kids. They fought hard, but it wasn't our day.''
Individual results
103-Conner Lewis (A) pinned Malcolm Griffin, 5:23.
112-Jamar Gore (L) tech fall Kennan Simmons, 18-3.
119-Laquindian Bromell (L) tech fall Drayton Epps, 23-8.
125-Josh Calkins (A) dec. Terrence Cox, 7-4.
130-Andrew Tillman (A) dec. Montell White, 8-4.
135-Adam Oaks (A) dec. Harry James, 13-8.
140-Josh Cowan (A) dec. John Nichols, 8-6.
145-CoLloyd Jackson (L.) dec. Antonio Tillman, 17-15.
152-Jonathan Patterson (A) pinned Nick McCray, 1:27.
160-James Powers (A) major dec. Dexter Richburg, 10-2.
171-Maurice Morris (L) pinned Avaryhus Sherard, :31.
189-Beau Sanders (A) dec. Waley Soles, 17-15.
215-Double forfeit.
Heavyweight_Emanuel Williams (L) dec. Bryan Glace, 11-4.
Records: Abbeville 26-5, Loris 31-2.
