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Gators end season in third round

Published Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:20 PM

By Rob Gantt
The Gazette

photo Rob Gantt

Summerville’s Matt Pantone was able to best Goose Creek’s Albert Mallard at 171 pounds during a Class AAAA playoff match Monday.

Goose Creek’s wrestling team wrapped up a successful season Monday in the third round of the Class AAAA playoffs, falling to perennial power Summerville 43-33 at GCHS.

“They were very tough,” said Goose Creek coach Leonard Covington, whose team finished 20-4 this winter. “Unfortunately we drew at 112. That was the first match. We didn’t want to match up our lightweights at the beginning. We wanted to get some confidence with our bigger guys and maybe make some things happen. It just didn’t happen that way for us.”

But Summerville had the match after 171 pounds – the Wave’s Matt Pantone defeated Goose Creek’s Jermaine Simmons 7-4 to give his team an insurmountable 43-9 lead – and the meat of the Gators lineup only touched the mat when Summerville forfeited the final four matches (189, 215, 285 and 103).

Still, the Gators can look back and enjoy a Region 7-AAAA championship. Plus several Goose Creek wrestlers are among the contenders for individual state championships in a couple weeks.

“It’s been a great year,” Covington said. “We advanced to the third round and beat a very good Dutch Fork team (in the second round). I felt like we had a very good season.”

Against Summerville, the Gators trailed 36-0 after six matches before Chris Thompson got the Gators on the board with a pin at 145 pounds. The only other points Goose Creek earned was by Jawaun Foreman, who out-pointed his man 15-7 at 160 pounds.

“Everyone knows that’s our strength of our team (the lower weights),” Summerville coach Darryl Tucker said. “We rely heavily on those guys and they usually answer the bell. The pins gave us some breathing room.”

Summerville moves on to face rival Fort Dorchester Wednesday in the Lower State finals.

The winner will advance to the state finals Saturday at Ridge View High School.

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