The Goose Creek High School wrestling team secured its first region crown since 2014-15 on Tuesday, Jan. 23, at the expense of its biggest rival.
Emerging victorious in a barnburner, the Gators edged visiting Stratford, 36-24, in the Region 6-5A clash to garner the region’s top spot for the Class 5A state duals. With Goose Creek holding a 30-25 advantage heading into the final bout, Gators heavyweight Andrew Adams recorded a first-period pin for the exclamation point in the showdown, making the Gators’ first-year leader a winner over his former squad.
“It was what I thought it was going to be,” said Goose Creek wrestling coach Willie Nearhood, who guided the Stratford program for 20 years before leaving in 2019.
Nearhood, who earned most of his more than 400 career victories on Crowfield Boulevard, guided Cross High School to the Class A-AA Lower State title match in 2022-2023 before taking over at Goose Creek for former Gators coach Devin Raho over the summer. He credited Raho and returning wrestlers for making the transition a smooth one.
The Gators started six seniors versus the Knights and have 10 on the roster.
“They came up with a coach that brought them from ground zero,” Nearhood said of his predecessor. “When he left, I knew it kind of hurt them. These seniors accepted me when I came in. I told them how I was. I told them we were going to push them hard and do things the right way. They just made the transition year really easy for me. I love all of them. I’ve called coach Raho many times during the season. He did a fantastic job getting these guys ready.”
The Gators never trailed after Montero Royal’s major decision in the opening bout at 106 pounds. Stratford evened the score at 4-4 on Johnny Cunningham’s major decision at 113 pounds, but Goose Creek took four of the next five weight classes to go up 21-7 at the halfway point.
The Gators led 30-16 after 11 of 14 bouts and was close to mathematically locking it up, but Stratford was able to force a decisive battle for all the marbles with a decision at 190 pounds by Justin Carver and pin at 215 pounds by Fred Brown.
Adams’ win at heavyweight gave the Knights victories in eight of the 14 weight classes and sent the Gators' bench into a frenzy.
“I thought we would get more bonus points,” Nearhood said. “I thought we would get some pins. Stratford does a fantastic job of not going to their back. Early in the match with some of our better guys where we normally get big bonus points, we just didn’t get them. Some of the swing matches didn’t go our way early, so it kind of looked like it was going to be really tight.”
The Gators host their first two playoff matches on Saturday, Feb. 3. Stratford finishes second in Region 6-5A and heads to the Region 5-5A champion Saturday, Feb. 3, for the first two rounds.
“Our lineup is different than it has been all season,” Nearhood said. “We’ve made a lot of changes. We’ll see what happens.”
Goose Creek 36, Stratford 24
106: Montero Royal (GC) over Jacob Lutz (MD 13-2)
113: Johnny Cunningham (S) over Allen Quiaem (MD 12-0)
120: Henry Schultz (GC) over Brayden Sturtevant (Fall)
126: Jerome Fikes (GC) over Travis Grey (MD 17-8)
132: Graham Howell (S) over Patrick Hansborough (Dec 10-8)
138: Jacob Butts (GC) over Matthew Godoy (MD 16-3)
144: Jordan Baptist (GC) over Drayton Howard (Dec 11-6)
150: Tanner Merta (S) over Neshawn Fikes (Dec 8-3)
157: Noah Nichols (S) win by forfeit
165: Brody Boulanger (GC) over Joshua Gervais (Dec 4-2)
175: Preston Rhodes (GC) over Jahmeel Gadson (Fall)
190: Justin Carver (S) over Kaden Gadson (Dec 7-5)
215: Fred Brown (S) over Zion Freeman (Fall)
285: Andrew Adams (GC) over Landon Stradcutter (Fall)
*Stratford was deducted one team point for unsportsmanlike conduct
