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Raiders roll to NPC tournament title
Regan Hill
Nick Tennant (left) of North Iredell and West Iredell's Matt Hubbard compete in Saturday's NPC wrestling tournament.
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Published: February 7, 2010
Paced by another dynamic performance at 103 pounds, North Iredell rolled to a North Piedmont 3A tournament championship on Saturday.
The Raiders winning with a Tutterrow at 103 pounds was expected. It just wasn't the Tutterrow most expected from North Iredell.
With mainstay Jacob Tutterrow — a senior and ranked second in the state at 103 pounds — out with an illness, his freshman brother Matthew stepped in and won the weight class, beating two wrestlers ranked in the top-10 in the state along the way.
Matthew Tutterrow had wrestled three matches all season prior to the tournament, all before January, and was named MVP of the tournament for his performance. He was also one of six first-place finishers for the Raiders, who tallied 197 team points.
After North was East Rowan (164.5), followed by South Rowan (131), Carson (110), West Rowan (101), West Iredell (55) and Statesville (51.5).
Other winners for the Raiders were Taylor Cockerham (112), Colby Gregory (130), Cody McPherson (135), Matt Allison (189) and Roger Vargas (215).
Despite finishing in seventh place as a team, the Greyhounds also had an individual winner in Markus Cromwell. The sophomore blitzed through the bracket at 160 pounds to take first.
"He wrestled well," Greyhounds coach Mickey Jordan said. "He wrestled a kid from East Rowan (Roland Arey) in the finals, and Markus pinned him the first time they wrestled. (Arey is) pretty good, and he just got caught the first time. But Markus wrestled a pretty clean match and ended up winning 11-3. He wrestled well. (Arey) is like 25-5, so he's no slouch."
Ryan Daining was the top finisher for the Warriors. Entering the tournament with a 28-1 record, Daining took second place at 171 pounds.
He lost in the finals to East Rowan's Josiah Hurst — the two split their matches during the regular season.
Also taking second place was North's Nathan Eklund Dobbs at 152 pounds.
Finishing third for the bronze were: North Iredell's Dillon Cartner (119), Zach Osborne (171) and Will Sanders (Hwt.); Statesville's Chanon Imes (130); and West Iredell brothers Jordan Pegram (145) and DeShaun Pegram (160).
"It was a real good tournament," Jordan said. "It ran real smoothly and had some great matches throughout the entire thing."
North Iredell's next venture is in the 3A dual-team playoffs, which begin Tuesday.
At 21-2 overall after sweeping their six North Piedmont matches, the Raiders are the top seed in the conference.
The pre-determined bracket has North paired against the No. 2 seed from the South Piedmont Conference, one of the toughest in the area. That will likely be Mt. Pleasant, which is 21-5 on the season.
Southwestern Randolph (37-2) would likely await the winner in the following round.
As for the Greyhounds and Warriors, neither qualified for the dual-team playoffs.
The next step for them is the 3A Midwest Regionals Feb. 19-Feb. 20 at Mt. Pleasant High School.
Each weight class has a 16-wrestler tournament, with the top four advancing to the state championships in Winston-Salem on Feb. 26-27.
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